A common theme runs through today’s colleges. Big or small, public or private, the need to increase enrollment is the issue we hear from our clients time and time again. There are several elements affecting this reality, even as college graduation rates increase year-over-year.
With evolving notions around traditional education and career readiness, college enrollments are looking less like the fresh-faced high school graduates of ten years ago. Some high schoolers even have incentives to embrace dropping out, with billionaires like Elon Musk encouraging skill-based versus diploma-based work.
Despite these unconventional shifts, colleges have an opportunity to refocus enrollment efforts on another audience: adult learners. Adult learners, and other non-traditional students, are on the rise. According to Inside Higher Ed, enrollment in college by those older than 25 increased by 11 percent between 2006 and 2016. Targeting these audiences takes a different approach than traditional recruitment methods for recent graduates. Working closely with community colleges and Career Technical Education (CTE) programs, we’ve identified some of the best methods to recruit and retain non-traditional students.
ADULT LEARNERS
It’s Not Just About the Money
There is a perception that adult learners only return to a college setting to choose a career path where they can potentially earn more income. While that scenario certainly exists, it is a one-note perspective. In our interview with Daniel Ramirez, Director of Public Relations and Marketing at South Texas College, we discussed the fact that adults’ return to college can be just as emotional as it is practical.
As part of his master degree’s capstone project, Ramirez interviewed and surveyed several adult learners to understand their motivations and found that “they were getting to a point with their kids where they were starting to have the conversation about the importance of education; and they felt hypocritical saying, ‘You have to go to college. It’s important.’ Yet they themselves hadn’t finished…and there was this desire to be that role model.”
This intrinsic motivation is key to recruiting those adult learners who may be satisfied with their careers and growth, but still harbor the dream of obtaining a diploma. With the knowledge that students are far more likely to attend college if they have a parent who attended college, the linear outcome provides a basis for encouraging adult enrollment. Many adult learners are driven by the betterment of their family’s bearings, as well as their own.
Show Them Themselves
So you’ve implemented adult learner programming but now you have to get the students. That suite of iStock photos of 18-year-olds won’t work here. College marketing must do more to appeal to an already wary audience of adult learners. Diversifying images – and methods – ensures that colleges aren’t inadvertently reinforcing the misperception that you have to be young to be successful in college.
The copy and outreach has to match, too. References to modern day memes or slang may be well-placed for younger audiences, but shouldn’t be considered boilerplate content for adult learners. If adult learners become a key element of your enrollment strategy, that means investing more in traditional media than in TikTok.
Connection is Key
While our social skills may have deteriorated during the pandemic, we cannot underestimate the impact of connection and relationships that a college campus provides. In fact, the lack of socializing and face-to-face interactions is one of the reigning issues impacting college-goers right now. When on-campus activities resume, adult learners will be in a sea of youth. It’s an uncomfortable situation, even for extroverts. The stigma and anxiety that surrounds being the eldest person in a classroom can keep many adult learners from enrolling. Colleges have countless resources to help young students engage with others; the same needs to exist for adult learners.
It’s important to remember that when adult learners enroll, they’re entering a phase in which many of their counterparts can no longer relate to, having attended college 20+ years prior. It’s a lonely experience, and one that leads to issues in retaining adult learners.
Creating hubs and groups specifically for adult learners to connect with each other helps these vulnerable students meet and identify with similarly positioned learners. These resources need to be clearly communicated to adult learners, as many of them will often 1) not seek it out, 2) lack the technological savvy to access campus resources online or via social media.
Offer Live Sessions AND Pre-Recorded Classes
Among the barriers keeping adult learners from enrolling is the need to continue working. The concern to breadwin while being a student makes many adult learners feel there is no possible way to juggle both. We know several colleges already have online classes to cater to working students, but adult learners are more likely to want to engage in an online class compared to their younger classmates.
Ramirez’s research found that adult learners “really liked the idea of live sessions because it would give them a chance to jump in, get a question answered, and jump out to get on to whatever else they need to do.”
This transition to incorporate live sessions is the easiest to do now – as colleges continue to offer video streaming classes as part of hybrid reopenings. Take advantage of your current infrastructure and adopt these functions long-term to the next class of adult learners.
NON-TRADITIONAL STUDENTS
Students who are underserved and overlooked become part of a troubling statistic for college graduation. And while colleges may not be able to thwart barriers to access in advance, there are several efforts institutions can make to recruit and retain first-generation, lower socioeconomic students or students and learning differences.
Addressing Basic Needs Supports Student Success
Students who fall into an at-risk category, whether because of their environmental or situational conditions, are much more likely to drop out compared to their counterparts. In our discussion with Dr. Dilcie Perez, Vice President of Student Services at Cerritos College, Perez stated that only when they overcome all of their exterior barriers can they “sit in that seat, in that classroom, focus on their school work, and perform and meet the rigor of the curriculum.” Easier said than done. But Dr. Perez has made it her mission to help them overcome those barriers and position them in the best spot to tackle the classroom.
According to Dr. Perez, it is not about decreasing the standards for at-risk students, it’s about increasing the standards of the students’ basic needs that will help them thrive. That means access to food and shelter, getting enough sleep, being in good mental health, and other items that traditional students do not need to face.
Colleges can get too wrapped up in meeting benchmarks or providing services for students that aren’t making impacts in their education goals. Dr. Perez says “our goal is to triage and get them connected to the community agencies that can help them. Every single thing we do needs to be connected to achieving their educational goal. If we are doing things and students are not progressing towards the educational gap, then we are doing it in vain.”
Remove Judgement
For fear of stigma and repercussions, at-risk students often do not seek help and resources when they need it. We’ve heard these experiences from students, where a negative interaction keeps them from finding support. Dr. Perez recognizes this too, stating that “people don’t understand why we, as a college campus, are taking this responsibility on.”
For seasoned educators, the rapidity at which student services has changed can seem staggering. Colleges are now tasked with food assistance, suicide prevention, abuse prevention, drug and alcohol awareness, and more.
A recent story by a homeless college student from Golden West College reinforces this point. Annastacia Espinoza was left without access to safe shelter, internet, and showers when campuses shut down during the pandemic. Espinoza emphasizes, “When a student feels heard and like they have support, academic success flies.”
Show Long-Term Success and Help with What’s Next
When students are facing day-to-day challenges, like how they’ll afford their next meal or complete their assignment by pulling an all-nighter, they struggle to think about future goals. Because at-risk students get bogged down in these issues, it’s easy for them to slip through the cracks and fail to account for their graduation and career planning. That’s something Dr. Gustavo Chamorro, Ed.D., Orange County Director of the Los Angeles Orange County Regional Consortium (LAOCRC), looks to address when it comes to introducing students to real workforce situations.
“I think as a system, we do an excellent job of providing instruction and preparing our students academically, but I believe we need to help them with what comes next once they graduate,” said Dr. Chamorro. “The goal is for them to get a job that provides livable wages, can help them move up in the future, and provide for their families”
Workforce entry opportunities, whether through internships, career fairs, resume building sessions, and other activities, helps non-traditional students keep their eye on the prize.
Ask Students Why They Are Leaving
Some level of student dropouts are inevitable. But dropouts must be looked at as more than just a statistic that affects funding. Dr. Perez poses the question, “when a student drops out, do we spend time calling that student to find out? Are we reaching out? Do we know the students we’re losing?”
Many colleges do not have that mechanism in place, creating a huge lost opportunity for colleges to address and understand the circumstances that leads to dropouts, and consequently, reduced enrollment.
Enrollment doesn’t have to be rocket science. Contact Graduate Communications for winning strategies to recruit and retain adult and non-traditional learners.
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