Tales of the non-traditional

More news about graduation and adult and continuing education students.  From The New York Times.

80-Year-Old Graduate of W.G.U. Texas Kept His Promise

Robert Titus likes to make jokes. Discussing his recently earned bachelor’s degree in marketing management, the 80-year-old said, “I wanted to get it while I was young, so I can start off on a good career.”  

But Mr. Titus has no illusions about getting hired, and he is just fine with that. After more than a decade of retirement, he is happier than ever.

So why pursue the degree? 

“I promised my mother many, many years ago that I would get my degree,” said Mr. Titus, a former salesman who lives in Houston. “To me, it was a major, big, big, huge accomplishment.” 

By a wide margin, Mr. Titus was the oldest member of the inaugural graduating class from W.G.U. Texas, a nonprofit online university created in 2011 with an executive order by Gov. Rick Perry.

Continuing educators have known this

For quite some time.  Traditional students have just about disappeared.  From The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The New Traditional on Campuses

And yet on another level, as a longtime professor and sometime administrator at community colleges, I am increasingly aware that the nostalgic film playing in my head, as I walk those elite four-year campuses, is more akin to an old episode of Leave It to Beaver than to contemporary reality. My experiences and those of the students I encounter at elite campuses no longer resemble the common experience of many college students today. What we used to call "nontraditional" students—older, working, married, and maybe still living at home—now constitute a large and growing percentage of those attending college in the United States. In fact, they are fast becoming the new traditional. 

Consider: The National Center for Education Statistics reports that of the 17.6 million people enrolled in college in the fall of 2011, only 15 percent were attending a four-year college and living on campus. Thirty-seven percent were enrolled part time, and 32 percent worked full time. Forty-three percent were attending a two-year college. More than a third were over 25, and a quarter were over 30. By 2019, the percentage of those over 25 is expected to increase by more than 20 percent. 

Given the trends—which those of us who work at community colleges have been observing for some time, and which are now playing at four-year campuses near you—how must faculty members adjust their thinking? And their teaching?