We Told You So

Inside Higher Ed's recent piece on "the rise of the nontraditional college student" is getting treated like some overdue revelation by hack administrators floundering to present themselves as experts of anything with relevance to the current enrollment and budget crises swallowing universities.

For those of us who have spent careers in professional, continuing, and online education, the piece is a validation of sorts. We've known for decades that roughly one in five college students is parenting or has childcare responsibilities, about a fourth are adult learners, and many are juggling college with full-time jobs. This isn't news to us, because these are our students.

What does deserve more scrutiny is the timing of the scramble by the SVPs of Somethingfancysounding to present this and related data as important enough to demand the university's immediate attention. I'd suggest the greatest amount of critical observation should be at mid-tier, tuition-dependent private universities who are watching their traditional age pipeline collapse and their balance sheets bleed red. I'm seeing with some degree of awe the number of these universities that have suddenly discovered adult learners as a mission critical priority. Enrollment cliffs and existential budget crises have a funny way of producing institutional enlightenment. The discouraging aspect of this is that these are often the same institutions with long histories of announcing bold "innovation initiatives," "student success task forces," and "reimagined learning models" that quietly evaporate after the press release cycle ends and the consultants get paid.

The "discovery" of adult learners at these universities will come with zero meaningful change to the  current model. That's cynical, I know, but it's just the way things are. The full-time, 18-22 year-old, residential paradigm is nearly impossible to change. Real change will only come from shorter terms, year-round enrollment, rolling admissions, market-priced tuition, competency based pacing, employer-aligned programs, stackable non-degree credentials, asynchronous support, and services built for non-traditional students. Those of us in continuing and online education didn't need a budget crisis to figure this out.