Something sets Duane Schroeder apart from the average college student who rolls out of bed and runs to class in his or her pajamas – he has a full-time job and returned to college at age 49.
Schroeder joins the ranks of the growing number of “non-traditional” students who are enrolling at SMU and other college campuses across the country.
“Non-traditional” often means age as 25 and older, but there are other criteria that go hand-in-hand, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Delayed enrollment also puts a student into the category, as does being a single parent, going to school full- or part-time while working full-time or transferring from another institution.
The Association for Non-Traditional Students in Higher Education reports that non-traditional students make up 49 percent of the new and returning student population nationwide. According to the Non-Traditional Student Success Act, proposed in 2004, 40 percent of nontraditional students work full-time, as opposed to 25 percent 15 years ago, and 27 percent are raising children, as compared to 20 percent in the same span of years.
Students return to college for many reasons. Some non-traditional students feel that in a world of changing technology, they have to have a degree to keep up with the times. Schroeder, who is enrolled in SMU’s Evening Degree Program, went back to school for this reason.
He works in the banking industry but worries that he will need a degree as the business turns to digital transactions. He and his manager at Wells Fargo are working on their bachelor’s of humanities.
“We both decided we needed to have the degree behind us if we were going to be flexible to change our careers or change paths within our company,” he said.
Schroeder also had a more personal reason. After the death of his father a year and a half ago, Schroeder moved back to Texas. He said his mother “reminded me how much my Dad valued education and continued taking various career type classes throughout his working life.” After his mother passed away, as well, he decided to pursue his education not only for job security, but to fulfill his word to his mother.
Other students return in hopes that a degree will land them a higher-paying job.
Pamela Conner, a 43-year-old journalism major, graduated from high school in the early 1980s but dropped out of a university and later community college, returning to SMU in 2003.
“I was tired of just working dead end jobs. I was working a temp job – I thought it might go somewhere, and they ended up laying me off,” she said.
Conner was also motivated by her children. “I wanted to provide a better life for all of us. I didn’t think about it at the time, but it was a good way to stress the importance of an education,” she said.
Some students, however, just need to take time off to afford the increasing costs of college tuition.Charlene Lewis, who will graduate from SMU in fall 2007 at the age of 51, delayed college for that reason.
“Education was also a goal for me, but I simply did not have the resources to attend college full-time when I was younger,” she said. “After high school, I worked, at least one job and often two. I married at 19, bought my first home, divorced at 24, and had an amazing career in the online industry in its infancy.”
After Lewis remarried at 30 and later had her first child, a daughter, at 37, she decided to return to college.Ã
“I had taken an assortment of courses through community colleges, but it was not until she began elementary school that I realized that if I was going to accomplish my education goal I needed to get busy,” she said.Ã
Now Lewis, an English major with a creative writing specialization, hopes to publish, get her masters and potentially teach other adults who have decided to continue their educations.
In accord with the growing numbers of non-traditional students, groups are arising to meet their needs, both on-campus and off.
Two organizations exist on the SMU campus to serve the needs of non-traditional students. The first, the Transfer and Non-Traditional student programs group, is run by SMU itself and seeks to make the transition to college life easier for transfer and non-traditional students, according to its Web site.
It offers programming through AARO, WOW and Mustang Corral and is run by student directors. More information about TNT can be found at www.smu.edu/newstudent/tnt/tnt.asp
The other non-traditional student group on campus is the Non-Traditional Student Organization, run by students. Its former name was Students Over Traditional Age, but it lost its charter about two years ago, according to Barb Scott, the president of NTSO.
Scott worked with about eight to 10 other people decided to try to get the organization off the ground again when she looked for an organization that would cater to her needs as a non-traditional student and saw that SOTA was inactive.
“I started meeting other people who felt like I did, like a fish out of water,” she said.
The people involved in NTSO range from age 23 to late 50s, and SMU provides the group with a database each year of students who are over age 23. The NTSO then e-mails the students and puts together events like tailgating parties.
“Our goals are to provide an informal means for non-traditional students to connect with each other outside of class,” she said, adding that transfers and non-traditional students often have a hard time engaging in social activities, either because they don’t know many people or because they have other responsibilities, such as family, that don’t allow for as much of a social life.
Scott said the group is currently trying to identify what the individual needs of students are so that they can better serve them.”Being that we’re a diverse group, there are lots of diverse needs,” she said. Scott also said that both TNT and the university itself have been very supportive of the group.
Katherine Oehmann, a full-time student, is a member of the Non-Traditional Student Organization on campus. She graduated from high school in 1969 and started college in 2003 after taking a few hours in the ’80s.
“When you see me walking on campus, you know I’m not one of those young girl students,” said Oehmann, 54, who graduates in December and hopes to re-enter the workforce.
Oehmann tried to rush last year for a sorority but was not invited to join any of the houses, though one house did offer her alumni status.
Now she works with NTSO to get non-traditional students together in the community. Those who wish to learn more about the organization can reach Oehmann at [email protected].
There are organizations to assist non-traditional students off-campus, as well. The Association for Nontraditional Students in Higher Education is an international organization that works with students and educators to encourage support and education for nontraditional students, according to its mission statement. Organized in 1996, it offers three scholarships a year to non-traditional students and holds an annual conference for non-traditional students.
Jeffrey Bunnell, the communications officer for the group, enrolled at St. Martin’s University in Lacey, Wash., after a 30-year career in the army and five years in the telecommunications industry. He said nontraditional students face “unique challenges” in returning to school, which makes groups like ANTHSE important.
“Not only do they have to maintain their life and responsibilities outside of campus . . . they must find time to for academic work and adapt to a new classroom settings of the modern day classroom,” he said. “Depending on when the non-trad attended college last, these changes can be dramatic.”
M.J. Giammaria, the secretary for the organization and a non-traditional student at the University of North Carolina in Wilmington, also advocates assisting non-traditional students to take advantage of the opportunities in the university setting and be part of the mainstream campus community.
“Study skills may need to be dusted off, road maps of how to navigate financial aid successfully may need to be provided. Providing names of groups/individuals that may be contacted to begin a supportive network is really helpful,” she said. “This allows the non-traditional student to arrive at a university campus knowing someone [or] something, and not arriving with the ‘deer in the headlights’ look.”
Shanda Smith, a 25-year-old student at Oklahoma State University at Stillwater and a member of the ANTSHE student board, is president of the Non-Traditional Student Organization on her campus. She said she wouldn’t be in school if it weren’t for the support of her group, and that many others have told her they feel the same way.
“It’s hard to survive in college without social support, and that support can be hard for non-trads to find when they are the minority on campus,” she said. “It’s also important to advocate for the rights and the needs of non-traditional students. They need a voice to the administration to get their needs met.”
As groups arise to meet these needs and the face and lifestyle of the college student slowly changes, Oehmann, Schroeder and other students at universities across the nation may even find themselves in the majority, making a new tradition in the field of education – returning to college while juggling work and families.
