As the number of traditional-aged students steadily declines in the United States, colleges and universities must seek to attract and enroll the large number of adults who have some college but no degree. This research sought to understand how one southern mid-sized institution recruited and enrolled a consistent number of adult learners over…

This qualitative narrative inquiry study explores lived experiences of seven working adult part-time online students, mostly community college transfers, in a Research 1 institution's online degree-completion program. Using in-depth interviews, four key themes are identified: access, engagement, inclusion, and university pride in students'…

Despite the increasing number of non-traditional doctoral researchers, this population's experiences remain largely understudied and their voices unheard. Through in-depth interviews with 24 part-time online doctoral candidates, we explored the perceived facilitators and barriers to academic integration and sense of belonging, as well as how…

As statewide college promise programs continue to develop, emerging equity concerns necessitate interrogating whom programs benefit and how expense funds can be applied. Critical Policy Analysis (CPA) is used in this chapter to understand how statewide promise programs advance or hinder racial equity across eligibility and financial aid support…

Research on student engagement, study engagement and academic entitlement has followed separate paths. This research examined how the concepts relate to each other among traditional and non-traditional Finnish business students (N = 476). A cluster analysis indicated that students form two clusters. Part-time students, students over the age of 25,…

More students entering into higher education in the United States are choosing to attend two-year colleges, but completion rates at these colleges, especially for nontraditional students, are consistently below 40%. Increased faculty interaction has been studied at four-year colleges as a strategy to increase completion rates and job prospects,…

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (2017), the adult student population between 2015 and 2027 is projected to increase by an additional 31%, making students over the age of 25 years the largest cohort on college campuses. Adult students balance living, learning, and earning, which can lead to higher attrition rates due to…

Despite efforts in Ireland to increase the number of part-time students in Higher Education, there was limited growth over twenty years 1997-2017. Part-time featured in widening participation strategies; however, this mode of learning has orientated towards employability. Retention of part-time students remains a problem for Higher Education. This…

A rapid increase of nontraditional learners enrolling in online education has resulted in the need for further research on the persistence of highly nontraditional students in online settings. As the enrollment of nontraditional students in online courses continues to grow, instructors face challenges with implementing effective course content and…

This study examined the factors that lead to student completion for part-time, post-traditional community college students (PTS). Research identified the environmental experiences and common characteristics of the student population using a sequential, exploratory research design. The qualitative segment of the study utilized a holistic,…

While access to higher education (HE) has substantially increased over the past number of years, the evidence suggests that social inequalities continue to be reproduced in terms of course level, field of study and institutional status. This paper examines, through the lens of Social Reproduction Theory, the socio-economic background and HE access…

Universities globally are aspiring to grow through investing in the delivery of online learning programmes. However, the attrition rate for online learning is high. It has been noted that those students with a sense of belonging to their course experience increased enjoyment and reduced anxiety and are therefore less likely to withdraw. Yet too…

This article explored the academic experiences of nontraditional students enrolled in an undergraduate degree program. For the purposes of this study students were deemed to be nontraditional if they met one of the following characteristics: had delayed enrollment into postsecondary education; attended college part-time; worked full time; were…

This report provides information on the 15 Iowa community colleges for the fall of 2022 including: (1) Students; (2) Student Demographics; (3) Academics; (4) Program Type; (5) Transfer Major Programs; (6) Career Clusters; (7) Online Enrollment; (8) Joint Enrollment; (9) Immediate Enrollment; and (10) Enrollment Projections. [For the 2021 report,…

The first round of data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System's (IPEDS) newest survey component, Outcome Measures (OM), was released to the public in Fall 2017. Importantly, the IPEDS OM survey begins to address some of the limitations of the prevailing Graduation Rate (GR) component data. These rates have only included…