You're Overplaying the Adult Learner Market

I'm seeing more tuition-dependent private universities building survival plans around adult learners. As we're well-aware, traditional-age enrollment is evaporating for privates (particularly mid-tier privates in the northeast and mid-Atlantic). And somewhere in a strategic plan deck is a cheesy and poorly developed slide promising senior leadership and trustees that a consultant will somehow increase adult enrollment in online programs by 300%. 

It's a bold number. 

It's also fantasy.

I encourage anyone who has seen these plans (and terrible slides) to demand the data behind the projections. When I look at the trend lines, adult undergraduate enrollment rates have dropped 35% since 2025. This is an important trend to consider for private universities, because additional data suggest that adults are opting out of formal degrees because of the product itself. Adult prospects are increasingly uninterested in degrees while increasingly interested in non-credit certificates, alternative credentials, and shorter non-degree pathways. 

Mid-tier tuition-dependent private universities aren't leaning into this non-degree market shift fast enough. Their financial models are archaic and run on multi-year degree enrollments, financial aid, and credit-hour tuition. So even where adult demand exists, it's demanding something these universities aren't investing in to develop and deploy at scale. 

Price is also a significant issue (it's always the number one criteria for adult learners). Private universities chasing adult learners without adjusting price are setting themselves up for a disastrous net tuition revenue collapse, where they'll be reactively discounting online part-time tuition so deep that hitting the enrollment number will do nothing for the budget gap it was supposed to fill. Keep spending stupid marketing dollars (on trite and insulting digital ads) and all you have is a pile of inquiries at the top of the funnel.

I'm not suggesting that the adult learner market is dead. There is significant opportunity and demand. But mid-tier privates buying into promises of a 300% enrollment increase to balance the budget and justify terrible organizational decisions should be asking honestly whether the ridiculous projection was based on fully evaluated data or was it just another bowl of wilted consultant word salad.