Artificial intelligence has become a routine part of how parents shop for colleges on their children's behalf, according to a new national survey released this week by education research and technology company EAB.
The survey, titled "Findings from EAB's 2026 Parent Survey," polled 2,515 parents of high school students nationwide between April 16 and May 14, spanning a range of household incomes, regions and students' grade levels. It found that 57 percent of parents have used AI tools such as ChatGPT to evaluate colleges and compare options for their children, and that about a third — 34 percent — said AI surfaced schools they had not previously considered.
"Our survey findings suggest that AI has become a gatekeeper in the college search process, not only for teens, but for parents as well," said Pam Royall, EAB's head of research and a co-author of the report. "AI is shaping how families perceive institutions before they ever attend an information session or speak with an admissions counselor."
The findings mark a shift in a college-search process that for decades ran through campus websites, mailers, email campaigns and, more recently, social media. Increasingly, families are asking AI systems to synthesize that material for them rather than combing through it directly. EAB's data show that 84 percent of parents report searching online for college information on their child's behalf, and that AI-generated summaries now often stand between families and the sources schools produce.
"A new challenge for university leaders is to ensure their digital content resonates with the people they're trying to recruit and is easily sourced by the AI systems that now interpret that information for families," Royall said.
Despite AI's growing role, parents' feelings about the technology are far from settled. More than a third of respondents said they are "very" or "extremely" concerned about AI's effect on their children's critical thinking skills, and parents were about evenly split on whether AI will change the number of jobs that require a college degree.
The survey also reinforces that affordability remains parents' dominant concern — 64 percent cited the cost of college as a top worry, outpacing every other issue, including college fit, by 14 percentage points. But the survey suggests parents are increasingly filtering that cost question through a single question: will it pay off in a job?
