A recent article published by the Atlantic and titled, Old School: College's Most Important Trend is the Rise of the Adult Student, made me really consider how much time we as student affairs practioners spend talking about the needs of adult students. The article cites recent statistics from the National Center for Educational Statistics stating that only 15% college students are enrolled in four-year residential institutions. And if this is even remotely the case it makes me wonder why this is the student that so many of us think of when we think of a "typical" college student. The article provides some detail about exactly who these adult students are:
"Thirty-eight percent of those enrolled in higher education are over the age of 25 and one-fourth are over the age of 30. The share of all students who are over age 25 is projected to increase another twenty-three percent by 2019."
There are certainly a number of issues for faculty and administrators to consider when it comes to this population:
1.) Pedagogy
2.) Course Scheduling
3) Demands on Students Time
4) Part Time versus Full Time Enrollment
5) Online Learning
For this post I'd like to specifically consider the role of student affairs practioners in meeting the needs of adult students. Using my own campus as an example the average age of our students is 28.1 years of age - down actually from 28.4 years of age. While we have been trending younger over the past few years we are still clearly serving primarily adult students. And, to this point I wonder how many institutions are aware of and perhaps more importantly deciminate information throughout campus on their institutions student profile? Do any of you know, for example, what the average age of students on your campus is?
Our student services offices, for example, maintain an 8:00 am - 5:00 pm schedule during the week and during peak times will offer a couple of weekend options. One consideration might be to gather some information from students about when they would utilize our student services offices and first understand if our 8:00 am -5:00 pm schedule is working for them or not. Because, what I am not advocating is total change without first understanding students needs.
From a professional development stand point we talk a lot about a lot of different populations on our campus - but don't often talk specifically about adult students and what some of their unique needs might be and what the implications for our practice are. When was the last time you had a discussion about the needs of adult learners?
Our student life office plans many of its activities around the needs and wants of younger students. And, again, I don't find fault here but have to wonder when the last time was that we asked students - specifically adult students - about the kinds of programs that would be most beneficial to them. I'm taking a guess that it might not be "activity" based but might have more to do with career exploration and assistance, programs that allow for families to attend rather than just the student etc.
Again, I am not making an argument for wholesale change in the way we do business but I do have to wonder when the last time was that any of us or our offices did an anaylsis of the kinds of students being served on our campuses and the type of support being provided to them. Does the current system support a true diversity of learners, in this case adult learners?
Our Vice President of Instruction said something interesting at a meeting on campus last week about newpaper companies being the last to know that newspapers were no longer meeting the needs of a changing environment. That has stood out to me for a few days now, and this article caused me to wonder if business as usual will miss large segments of our student population given that this student population is changing so rapidly.
Libby, I really enjoyed this blog and I agree with you across the board! I do not know the average age of a UNC student. I would venture to guess it is slightly lower than that on your campus but it definitely makes me curious. As a Transfer Admission Counselor I often feel like an advocate for some of the services you are referring to for the students I come across.
ReplyDeleteI believe that what these students want is different than a traditional student. You're right that perhaps they want family programming but I would guess that what they are looking for is hands-on, realistic services like Career Services, job fairs, financial aid, daycare, night and weekend classes, etc.
As a matter of fact, just today, I had a conversation with a non-traditional student who brought up that it would be nice if UNC had on-campus daycare. She said that many times she's brought her son to class with her or he's hung out at the University Center while she's had meetings.
It is my understanding that UNC offered daycare services at one point. Maybe someone has history and knows why it went away or what costs are associated with having something like this on a college campus?
This is obviously a current issue as on the day you post this blog, I had a conversation with a student about the same ideas. I think that sometimes there is hesitation to have programming for these students because of the fear that they wouldn't be highly used. However, I think that acknowledging this population exists and doing research to see what services they find valuable would be an excellent start to making their experience more valuable.
It is speculated that the UNC daycare services went away due to liability and insurance issues.
ReplyDeleteUNC recently has had a new club emerge, Non-Traditional Students. The reality is the non-traditional student population is growing given the current economy and the feeling that increased training is required to attain employment.
The term "non-traditional students" is far reaching. It includes but is not limited to adults with prior work experience, veterans, single parent households and people returning to college after a break in academic training.
While institutional changes are being made to address this growing population the real change needs to happen with the professors. Professors will need to be flexible with these students as demands outside of the academic environment will continue to pressure these students and hamper the learning process. These external obligations need to be acknowledged and in doing so the classes need to be focused. External obligations could be anything from day care to medical issues (family and self) to the inflexibility of work demands.
Trying to force feed information through a fire hose and high density work load is not going to work in retaining these students. The analogy I typically use is take a hand full of toilet paper, wet it down and throw it against the wall. What sticks, sticks. The same can be said of how some professors teach their classes. This is not an appropriate or effective education model. These students simply do not have the time to commit that traditional students enjoy. These students will triage what is important and what is not often sacrificing reading obligations trusting the lecture to address main concepts they need to know. By taking that approach many students sacrifice learning in order to 'get by'.
Some will say the student needs to become more efficient and organized. This is assuming the student isn't organized to begin with and faulty logic. No matter how organized a person gets at some point there is saturation and no more can be done.
When juggling family, work and school the likelihood of a person finishing their education becomes less which is detrimental to the person, the school and society as a whole.