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Why Would I Show Up?
What Students Are Telling Us About Engagement — and What TRIO Can Do About It
You planned the event.
You sent the email.
You sent the reminder.
You ordered the food.
And then, five minutes before the program begins, you look around the room and wonder:
Where is everybody?
If you work with students, you’ve probably experienced some version of this.
It’s easy to assume students aren’t motivated, aren’t paying attention, or simply don’t want to participate. But after years of studying recruitment, retention, and student engagement strategies in higher education, I’ve learned that there’s a much better question to ask:
Why would I show up?
Not Why should they show up?
Why would I, if I were that student?
Students ages 16–23 are juggling school, jobs, transportation, family responsibilities, relationships, finances, social lives, and an almost constant stream of information competing for their attention.
So if we want them to participate in TRIO, we have to look at the experience through their eyes.
And the research gives us some fascinating clues.
Apparently, Free Food Still Works
Let’s start with the fun stuff.
Barnes & Noble College Insights asked 18–22-year-old students what would motivate them to attend campus bookstore events.
Here’s what they said:
87% — Product samples or giveaways
83% — Complimentary catered food
75% — Raffles or prizes
74% — Friends were planning to attend
69% — Opportunity to learn a new skill or expand their knowledge
So yes, pizza remains a legitimate student-engagement strategy.
But look a little more closely at those numbers.
Friends matter almost as much as food.
And nearly seven in ten students said they were interested in an opportunity to learn something useful.
Students aren’t necessarily telling us:
I don’t want programming.
They may be telling us:
Make it worth my time. Make it useful. Make it comfortable. And please don’t make me walk into a room alone where I don’t know anyone.
That changes the way we think about engagement.
Sometimes the Problem Isn’t Motivation. It’s Tuesday at 3:00.
A Student Voice survey from Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse asked 3,000 students at two- and four-year institutions about their campus involvement.
Some of their biggest barriers were:
41% — Timing and location of events
36% — Off-campus work
31% — Lack of knowledge about activities or events
20% — Cost
19% — Not living near campus
18% — Feeling like they don’t belong
That 41% is important.
Sometimes we’re trying to fix a student motivation problem when the real problem is Tuesday at 3:00.
Before we add another incentive, another reminder, or another program, perhaps we should ask:
Can students realistically get there?
Does the time work with jobs and school?
Is transportation an issue?
Did students actually know about it?
Was registration easy?
Does the student understand what they’ll gain by attending?
And perhaps most importantly:
Does a student who doesn’t know anyone feel comfortable walking through that door alone?
Removing one barrier may do more for engagement than adding three new programs.
“But We Emailed Them.”
There may be no sentence more familiar in higher education.
“But we emailed them.”
We sent it.
Therefore, surely they received it, read it, understood it, remembered it, and acted upon it.
Except those aren’t the same thing.
And here’s something that may surprise us: email isn’t dead.
A 2026 SchoolFinder Group survey of more than 1,800 prospective postsecondary students found that 53% selected email only when asked how they preferred institutions to communicate with them beyond their initial inquiry. About 63% said they usually read email on their phone. The research also found that usefulness and relevance mattered more to students than fancy graphics or personalization.
So the answer isn’t necessarily:
Stop emailing students.
Maybe it’s:
Send better emails.
Compare these two subject lines:
TRIO Scholarship Workshop — Thursday at 4:00
versus
I found 3 scholarships you may qualify for
Same workshop.
Very different reason to open the email.
We often communicate the name of the program we’re providing instead of the problem we’re helping the student solve.
That’s a recruitment lesson that applies beautifully to retention and engagement.
What About Texting?
Text can be one of our most useful tools—but only if we don’t turn a student’s text messages into another email inbox.
Among students in the SchoolFinder research who were receptive to text messaging, 87% wanted reminders about important deadlines and 47% wanted event updates.
That suggests a very simple communication strategy:
Email informs. Text prompts.
An email might say:
Here are the details for Thursday’s scholarship workshop.
A text might say:
Hey Maya! We’re starting at 4. Pizza just arrived. 😊 Are you coming?
The email provides information.
The text asks for action.
And notice something else about that text:
It sounds like it came from a person.
That’s important.
Instagram Has a Different Job
Social media doesn’t have to be the place where we explain FAFSA.
In fact, please don’t make anyone read the FAFSA instructions on Instagram.
Social media can do something else exceptionally well:
It can let students see what it feels like to belong.
University of Waterloo’s student communications research found students still prefer email for official university information while social media plays a stronger role around student life, community, services, and events. Instagram was the leading social platform in its 2023 results.
So show them TRIO.
Show the students laughing on the college tour.
Celebrate the scholarship winner.
Introduce your peer mentors.
Show today’s pizza.
Put a student’s success story in Stories.
Let a student take over the account for a day.
Show the messy behind-the-scenes preparations for tomorrow’s event.
Post the photo that says:
These people know each other. They’re having fun. They belong here. And there’s room for me, too.
Social media isn’t simply another bulletin board.
It can provide a window into your culture.
And Don’t Completely Give Up on the Telephone
In the 2026 prospective-student communication survey, only 9.7% selected phone calls as an additional preferred communication channel.
That doesn’t mean we should never call students.
Because there’s an enormous difference between this:
“Hello. I’m calling from Student Support Services to remind you of an upcoming program…”
and this:
“Hey, Jordan. I haven’t seen you lately. I wanted to check on you. How are things going?”
One is institutional communication.
The other is relationship.
And relationship is where TRIO has an enormous advantage.
Match the Channel to the Job
Maybe we’ve been asking the wrong question.
Instead of:
“What’s the best way to communicate with Gen Z?”
Ask:
“What am I trying to accomplish?”
If you’re explaining something important, email may be the best place to start.
If you need a student to take action today, try text.
If you want students to see your culture, events, and community, use social media.
If a student who normally participates has disappeared, perhaps it’s time for a personal text, call, or conversation.
If something is urgent, use multiple channels.
The goal isn’t to find one magical communication method.
It’s to match the channel to the job.
And then make sure the message itself is worth receiving.
Would YOU Come?
Here’s an exercise to try with your TRIO staff.
Pull out your upcoming program calendar.
Look at the titles.
Then ask one question:
Would I come?
Consider:
Financial Literacy Workshop
What if it became:
You Have $75 Until Payday. What Do You Do?
Scholarship Workshop
could become:
Let’s Find You $1,000
Study Skills Workshop
could become:
Your Week Is a Disaster. Let’s Fix It.
Career Exploration Workshop
could become:
Would You Take This Job?
The learning objective hasn’t changed.
The invitation has.
Students don’t necessarily care what we’ve named our programming category.
They want to know:
What’s in this for me?
But Showing Up Is Only Half the Story
Here’s the statistic that may matter most.
When students in the Student Voice research were asked about the benefits of extracurricular participation, 70% identified meeting new people or making new friends as a top benefit.
Think about that.
We may advertise:
Scholarships.
Financial aid.
Academic support.
College tours.
Career preparation.
FAFSA assistance.
But a student may walk through our door looking for something else, too.
People.
Someone who knows their name.
Someone who’s glad they came.
Someone to sit beside.
Someone who understands.
Someone who notices when they aren’t there.
That’s where attendance becomes engagement.
And where engagement can become belonging.
Think About the Student Who Always Comes Back
Every TRIO program has one.
Think about that student.
The student who stops by the office even when they don’t have an appointment.
The student who comes to everything.
The one who brings another student with them.
The one who volunteers.
The one who knows everyone in the office.
Now ask:
Why does that student keep coming back?
My guess is that your first answer won’t be:
Our workshops are exceptionally well organized.
It will probably sound more like:
She knows us.
His friends are here.
She feels comfortable.
He knows we’ll help him.
We know what’s going on in her life.
Someone would notice if he stopped coming.
In other words:
They belong.
That’s the part of engagement we can’t afford to miss.
The incentive might get a student through the door.
The relationship may be what brings them back.
Try the +1 Challenge
Here’s my challenge for TRIO professionals:
Don’t create another program.
You already have enough to do.
Instead, choose one thing you’re already doing.
Then ask:
What is ONE thing we could change that would make a student more likely to show up—or more likely to come back?
Maybe you:
Send a personal text instead of another mass email.
Let students bring a friend.
Change the time.
Provide food.
Rewrite the invitation around what students will gain.
Have a student ambassador standing at the door.
Make sure students leave with something completed.
Ask students to choose the next topic.
Introduce a student who arrives alone to someone immediately.
Follow up the next day.
Or simply notice the student who hasn’t been around lately.
It doesn’t have to be a complete program redesign.
Just +1.
Maybe We Don’t Need More Programming
TRIO professionals are extraordinarily good at creating opportunities for students.
But perhaps better engagement doesn’t always require us to create more.
Maybe it requires us to look differently at what we’re already doing.
Make it easier to access.
Make the value obvious.
Communicate it in the right place.
Make the invitation personal.
Make it useful.
Make it comfortable to walk in alone.
Help students meet one another.
And notice when someone stops coming.
Because ultimately, the question isn’t simply:
How do we get students to show up?
There’s another question that may matter even more:
What happens when they do?
Students may initially show up because of what we offer.
They come back because of how they feel when they’re there.
And that’s where TRIO can make all the difference.