Program Completion Barriers Faced by Adult Learners in Higher Education

Academic Exchange Quarterly, Summer, 2001 by Brit Osgood-Treston

Abstract

This article identifies characteristics of the adult learner and briefly reviews literature on the attrition and retention of adult learners in higher education programs. A summary of that research shows that adult learners focus on their roles as learners, their ability to balance school with outside responsibilities, and their flexibility in attaining personal goals within the context of educational and institutional goals. Programs aimed at improving the retention of adult learners and lessening attrition rates must take into account these factors.

Introduction

At 7 p.m. on the first day of the new school year, a freshman English class gets underway. The professor asks how many of the students are new to campus, and most of the hands in the room shoot up. She then conducts an icebreaker. Each student receives a "bingo" card: a sheet of paper containing a simple grid. The object is to write a different classmate's name in each square on the grid, and the first person to "black out" the card with names wins. Each square holds a brief description with which a classmate must be matched, for example, "Rides A Razor Scooter" or "Is Pierced" or "Has Seen Every Episode of Dawson's Creek.'" These are typical characteristics for traditional college freshmen, those 18- and 19-year-olds coming to college straight out of high school. However, some of the squares contain not-so-typical characteristics, such as, "Is A Parent" or "Can Remember The 1970s" or "Has A Full Time Job." What are the chances of finding names for those squares? Actually, the odds are almost dead even.

Each year a large number of adults return to school, with many choosing programs in higher education. The latest available statistics show that more than 15 percent of full-time and more than 60 percent of part-time first-year undergraduates are age 25 or older (National Center for Education Statistics, 1997). These statistics do not take into account adult-oriented graduate, professional development, continuing education, and college-sponsored basic education programs, so the claim that more than half of the students found in today's college and university classrooms are older than 24 is not an unreasonable one.

Changing demographics in higher education stem, in part, from displaced workers, recent welfare reform, a continuing explosion in new technology, and the aging of the baby boomers. Adults are flooding colleges and universities to learn a new trade or profession, to remediate basic skills, to master computer operations, or to simply gain new knowledge. They come for the same reasons as their younger counterparts but bring with them more complex issues that may dramatically affect their ability to stay in school. Many studies in the attrition and retention of students in higher education continue to focus on the traditional freshmen mentioned earlier, along with their sophomore, junior, and senior counterparts. Those studies that do acknowledge older students have reached their conclusions by modifying the theories applied to younger students to "fit" a different demographic, with mixed results.

For example, social theories of attrition have linked student persistence to acclimation: if students feel comfortable in and accepted by the campus community, they tend to stay longer. It is logical that this would hold true whether the students were just out of high school or heading toward retirement. However, the way in which older students are made to feel at home on campus might differ, and the retention measures and interventions taken by colleges and universities might not always reflect this. The intention of this paper is to review the current body of literature about the attrition and retention of adult learners in higher education programs and to highlight any distinct areas that warrant further study.

Definitions and Classifications

It is an extreme generalization to view anyone over the age of 25 as an adult learner and any program serving adult learners as adult education, but when it comes to defining adult education and adult learners, the existing literature is almost this broad. Historically, adult education has been defined as "a separate, peripheral activity, and its clientele is completely outside the compulsory-attendance age groups" (Clark, 1980, p. 58). Stubblefield and Keane have pointed to one widely accepted definition of adult education, appearing in the literature as early as 1936, that limits it to those voluntary educational activities carried out by people during their everyday lives to attain personal enrichment. Stubblefield and Keane (1994) have identified the various forms of adult education as "social innovations through which an individual, organization, or government seeks to accomplish certain purposes" (p. 309).

How do these definitions apply to higher education? Who are the adult learners, and what place does adult education occupy at colleges and universities? In order to single out any attrition and retention issues unique to adult learners in higher education programs, it is necessary to trace the boundaries that set adult learners apart and to identify their position in the general college and university student population.