Alumni engagement starts before graduation: what the data says
Most universities meet their alumni at the alumni office. By then, the relationship has mostly been decided.
Across 398 institutions in 18 countries, the median university engaged just 14.7% of its alumni in 2025. That’s in any way at all (CASE, 2025).
Roughly 1 in 7. And the trend is down.
In a group of 271 institutions tracked for three years, the median fell from 16.7% to 15.7%. Over the same years, their contactable alumni grew from 44.0 million to 47.9 million (CASE, 2025).
More names. Fewer relationships.
What alumni actually engage with
CASE measures alumni engagement in four modes. The 2025 medians show where alumni really show up.
| Mode | Median share of alumni engaged (2025) |
|---|---|
| Communication | 11.57% |
| Experiential (events and programs) | 4.31% |
| Philanthropic (giving) | 3.29% |
| Volunteer | 0.74% |
Source: CASE Insights on Alumni Engagement 2025. Medians for the 271 institutions tracked from 2023 to 2025.
Giving is also the mode that’s shrinking. Philanthropic engagement fell from 3.8% in 2023 to 3.3% in 2025.
So an alumni strategy that opens with a donation ask opens with the thing the fewest alumni do.
Public universities have the steeper climb. Their median engagement was 9.6%, against 23.5% at private institutions (CASE, 2025). Many of the region’s largest universities are public.
The relationship is built on campus
Alumni engagement is mostly decided before graduation day.
Gallup surveyed nearly 30,000 U.S. graduates about college and life after it. Graduates who had a professor who cared about them, made them excited to learn and encouraged their dreams had more than double the odds of being engaged at work. Only 14% said they had that support (Gallup-Purdue Index, 2014, U.S. data).
The same research found that graduates who felt supported in college were six times more likely to be emotionally attached to their university. Only 22% strongly agreed they’d had a mentor who encouraged them (Gallup-Purdue Index Report, 2014).
Think about what that means for alumni teams. The students who felt known on campus become the alumni who answer.
Mentoring, career help and belonging aren’t only alumni programs. They’re student life, done well. That’s also where fragmented communication does the most damage: alumni loyalty is built long before commencement.
In MENA, an alumni network is a career service
There’s a second reason to start early. Jobs.
In 2025, youth unemployment in the Arab States was 26.2%. In Northern Africa it was 22.6%. Almost one in three young people in both regions was not in employment, education or training (ILO, Global Employment Trends for Youth 2026).
These are regional averages, and countries differ widely. But they show how hard the first job can be.
When jobs are scarce, who you know matters. A large experiment on LinkedIn tested this with more than 20 million people over five years. The ties that led to the most job moves weren’t close friends. They were weaker ones: people you know a little and rarely talk to (Rajkumar and colleagues, Science, 2022).
That’s what an alumni network is. Thousands of people your students know a little, who studied where they studied.
Built well, it’s a career service first. Giving can come later.
What starting before graduation looks like
A journey worth building:
- First year: bring alumni into orientation and student clubs as speakers and mentors.
- Final year: run career sessions with alumni from the industries your students want. Invite final-year students into the alumni app before they leave.
- Graduation week: welcome them as alumni on WhatsApp, in their language. One message, one next step.
- First 12 months: share jobs and internships from alumni employers. Check in at 3 and 6 months: “How’s the job search going?”
- Year two onward: invite them to mentor the next class. That’s when a giving ask starts to make sense.
Where Eduway fits
Eduway’s Alumni App keeps graduates close: events, mentoring, jobs, news and reunions. Employers can post jobs in the app.
Eduway covers the whole journey, from recruitment to student life to alumni. So the relationship doesn’t restart at graduation. The WhatsApp number that welcomed a student in their first week can welcome them to the alumni network.
See the Alumni App, or read what works when you message students on WhatsApp.
5 things alumni teams can do this term
- Get final-year students into your alumni channel now. Not after graduation.
- Lead with careers. Make your first alumni message about jobs or mentoring, not a donation.
- Recruit your first 20 alumni mentors. Match them to final-year students by major.
- Track engagement by mode. Communication, events, volunteering and giving. CASE’s four modes are a good start.
- Ask alumni what they need. A two-question WhatsApp survey beats a long email form.
Questions universities ask
What is a good alumni engagement rate?
Across 398 institutions, the 2025 median was 14.7% engaged in any mode. Public institutions sat at 9.6% and private ones at 23.5% (CASE). Track your own rate each year, by mode.
When should alumni engagement start?
Before graduation. Gallup found that graduates who felt supported in college were six times more likely to be emotionally attached to their university. The final year is also when students are easiest to reach.
Is alumni engagement mainly about fundraising?
No. Giving is the smallest of the four modes, and it’s shrinking. Lead with careers, mentoring and events, then ask.
The shorter version
- The median university engaged 14.7% of its alumni in 2025, and the trend is down.
- Giving is the weakest mode. Starting with the ask starts in the wrong place.
- Support and mentoring in college shape engagement after it.
- In MENA, where youth unemployment is high, an alumni network is a career service first.
Learn more about Eduway, or book a discovery session to map an alumni journey that starts before graduation.
Sources
- CASE (2026). CASE Insights on Alumni Engagement 2025: Key Findings. Council for Advancement and Support of Education.
- Ray, J. and Marken, S. (2014). Life in college matters for life after college. Gallup.
- Gallup (2014). The 2014 Gallup-Purdue Index Report: Great jobs, great lives.
- Rajkumar, K., Saint-Jacques, G., Bojinov, I., Brynjolfsson, E. and Aral, S. (2022). A causal test of the strength of weak ties. Science, 377(6612), 1304-1310.
- International Labour Organization (2026). Global Employment Trends for Youth 2026.