Online Education Articles - Adult Continuing Education Online - Adults Returning To School

A study on the value and feasibility of pursuing higher education as an adult.

Degrees of Opportunity: Results in depth

Education is the one thing they can't take away from you. I have never heard anyone say they wish they hadn't gotten that degree.

Degrees of Opportunity survey respondent

Most adults want more education, according to the Degrees of Opportunity study. The study also explores adults' views on the benefits of getting more education as an adult, the barriers that may make it challenging to return to school as an adult, and the educational influences as children and adults.

Nearly half of adults (47%) have returned to school after the age of 25. Their educational goals included:

  • Master's or doctoral degrees (25%).
  • Professional licensure or certification, or other job training (24%).
  • Other – additional learning, GED, etc. (24%).
  • Bachelor's degrees (15%).
  • Associate's degrees (12%).

More than half of adults age 25–60 (52%) would like additional education. This is equivalent of more than 70 million Americans.

  • Of those who want additional education, 27% are considering a post-graduate degree program.
  • Those with post-graduate degrees are most likely to say they have completed all their formal education.

The time is now — if not sooner.

  • 57% of those who have gone back to school say they wish they had done it sooner.
  • 42% say the timing was about right.
  • Less than 1% say they wish they’d waited longer.

Reflection

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Traditional brick-and-mortar universities, typically designed for the 18- to 21-year-old student attending college immediately after high school, do not have the space or infrastructure to meet the growing demand for higher education by adults over the age of 25. Higher education responded by developing new delivery modes designed to accommodate the different sets of challenges and assets that adult students bring to the pursuit of higher education.

The growth in evening and weekend colleges in the 1980s and 1990s addressed some of the needs of working adults by offering classes outside of normal business hours and by adding content that helped adult students more directly apply their education to their work. During the late 1990s, the increasing sophistication and accessibility of the World Wide Web led to the creation of online universities and courses, which is greatly expanding the opportunities for working adults to go back to school by providing students with much greater control over the time and place of learning.

Enrollment in purely online education programs has grown at an average rate of 35 percent each year from 2002 to 2005, growing from less than 500,000 students in 2002 to an estimated 1.2 million in 20051. With a large number of adults wanting to go back to school while working and raising a family, online educational opportunities are likely to play an increasing role in higher education.

1 Eduventures (2005). Online distance education market update 2005. Boston, MA: Author.