Abstract
Adult learners have identified financial challenges in their pursuit of a college education. While it is understood that tuition and other educational expenses are among these challenges, perspectives on daily financial challenges and their impact on college-going are not as heavily represented in the literature. The purpose of this study was to investigate the financial experiences adult women in the United States encounter in pursuit of a college degree in order to better support adult learners more broadly. Using feminist narrative framework, the study introduces eight women who were in the final stages of bachelor’s degree completion at a private women’s college and overcame various financial obstacles to do so. The findings indicate that women’s lives are a complex web of challenges that create educational barriers.
Introduction
Earning a college degree is one of the most commonly referenced ways to ensure employment and economic stability in the United States (Alfonso, 2006; Baum & Ma, 2007; Callen, 2012; Duncan, 2010; Flores et al., 2006; Gilbert & Heller, 2013; Gladieux & Perna, 2005; Goldrick-Rab, 2006; Kanter, 2011; Kohl, 2010; Levine & Nidiffer, 1996; Paulsen & St John, 2002). However, for a variety of reasons, the system of higher education is often not accessible to all populations, specifically those that are adult students, defined by the U.S. government as 24 years old or older (National Center for Education Statistics, 2015).
Many young adults (aged 18–23) who graduate from high school do not attend college. This could be a conscious choice or it could be attributed to lack of preparation, lack of funding, lack of knowledge on how to enroll, or any combination of these and other barriers (St John et al., 2013). However, an individual could determine it is crucial to earn their college degree as they get older. Unfortunately, these individuals are punished for not making that decision to attend college sooner, as they face more challenges in enrolling and completing their degree later in life. While there are a plethora of structural and personal limitations to consider, the results of this study focus on the limitations related to affordability and financing an education.
Many students enter college for the first time as an adult. Others accessed post-secondary education immediately after high school, as a traditional student, yet are unable to persist and stop-out prior to completion. The six-year bachelors’ completion rate is less than 40% (Bound et al., 2010; Duncan, 2010; Gladieux & Perna, 2005; Mangan, 2015; National Center for Education Statistics, 2012), which indicates at least 60% of college students are leaving college without having earned a degree. These ‘near-completers’ (Michelau, 2011) are often in a precarious financial bind, as they most likely borrowed money from the government through financial aid to fund their education when they first enrolled. As they leave college, they often have student loan debt and do not have a job that will earn them the level of income needed to pay off the debt.
With the increased need for a college degree in order to obtain and maintain gainful employment (Abel & Deitz, 2014; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005), it is important to understand the personal and systemic financial constraints that hold adult women back from earning their bachelor’s degree. The purpose of this study was to investigate and understand the financial experiences adult women encounter in pursuit of a college degree in order to better support adult learners more broadly.
Literature review
The National Center for Educational Statistics describes a non-traditional student as possessing at least one of seven characteristics: delayed enrollment in college after high school completion; attends college on a part-time basis; financially independent of parents; employed full-time while attending school; has dependents that require time and financial resources; is a single parent; and/or did not complete high school. ‘Non-traditional students exist as a group only in the presence of traditional students’ (Trowler, 2015, pp. 298–299). In 2011, only two-thirds of high school students attended college immediately after high school (Hauptman, 2011). Given so many undergraduates diverge from the traditional path of higher education, the label ‘non-traditional’ has become a misnomer. Soares (2013) encourages us to reframe the label of ‘non-traditional’ student and replace it with that of ‘post-traditional’, to better reflect all the needs of individuals pursuing a college degree in the 21st-century.
In the United States, the welfare of individuals is measured by level of income and income is determined by level of education (Baum & Ma, 2007; Flores & Oseguera, 2013; Mortenson, 1998). Higher education is the route to that economic opportunity due to the type of skills that are required for the jobs in the knowledge economy of the 21st-century (Callen, 2011; Van Hook et al., 2004). While estimates vary slightly, Kohl (2010) and Tate (2015) indicate that 63–65% of the jobs in the future will require a college degree. It is predicted that 60 million Americans will lack the skills and credentials to join this knowledge economy (Kanter, 2011). Non-degree holding adults are most susceptible to falling behind in the new economy (Van Hook et al., 2004).
In 2006, 91% of people living above the poverty line were found to have held a bachelor’s degree (Shaw & Goldrick-Rab, 2006), which would indicate that holding a college degree is a ticket out of poverty. The United States must do a better job of making college available to poor adults to aid in bringing them out of poverty (Levine & Nidiffer, 1996). Yet, at the same time, due to the increasing cost of higher education, financing a college degree has become a greater burden regardless of the age of the student. The Consumer Price Index saw an increase of 432% between 1971 and 2009, yet during this same time frame college tuition increased 1200% (Heller, 2011). This expense is one of the many reasons why high school graduates do not attend college right away, or at all.
It is widely understood that financial aid has a positive impact on college accessibility and persistence through degree completion (Gladieux et al., 2010; Price, 2004; St John et al., 2013). The post-traditional student must navigate a number of life circumstances that often differ from the current delivery structure of higher education, particularly in regard to finances. Taking classes on a part-time basis and not being likely to complete their college degree in six years are just a few. Lacking is broad financial aid policy, which would support post-traditional students with these and other aspects of their lives to assist with the affordability and practicality of earning a college degree. Child-care issues, health care issues and greater financial obligations are examples of the other social factors that must be considered, particularly for adult learners. These students can take up to 10 years or more to complete a bachelor’s degree and are also prone to transferring in and out of multiple institutions to earn their degree (Bound et al., 2007). Because of the length of time to earn their degree and the number of institutions they have attended, they often run into limitations in regard to the amount of federal aid the government permits them. There is a need for institutions to understand the primary financial concerns of adult learners and work to actively implement solutions to support them.
Theoretical framework
In exploring the diverse character of women, post-modern feminism takes a stance of examining the political agenda and claims that women have historically been and continue to be a marginalized group of people (Olesen, 2005; Sands & Nuccio, 1992). Creswell (2009) encourages the feminist researcher to examine policy issues related to social justice for women in specific contexts. Tamboukou (2008) states that policy issues relating to social justice for women must be deconstructed. Thus, feminism is the appropriate perspective from which to examine the barriers to adult women financing their college degree.
Methods
Narrative research allows the researcher to share the stories of the researched in her own words rather than the researcher’s (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). I will bring forward the human story of the struggles that adult women are facing in pursuit of a college degree and highlight the sacrifices they make to finance their degree. The relationships that I had with the participants in advance of the study allowed them to feel comfortable sharing their stories with me in the research process. These relationships likely assisted in softening any power dynamics that are typical in research. The participants have different socioeconomic backgrounds, family structures and varied educational backgrounds that span a depth and breadth of both opportunity and missed opportunity. Post-modern feminism is also based on the principles of critical inquiry that examine how a particular group or population has been disempowered (Crotty, 1998). The study illuminates the challenges that adult women have faced as they strive to achieve their bachelor’s degree while working within systems to try to pay for that degree.
Participants
The participants in this study are eight adult women who are either pursuing an undergraduate degree or have recently completed their degree. I gained access to the participants due to my professional role in the setting and my pre-existing relationships with the student body of the college. Creswell (2009) encourages researchers to collect data in the field where the participants experience the issue, talking to people and seeing them behave and act in their context. In the case of this study setting, the educational context is important because it is within the institution that student-service personnel hear about the financial obstacles and implications these obstacles have outside of the educational context. Participants were recruited for this study through a combination of self-selection and targeted selection after receiving permission and student email addresses from the administration of the unit. The participants are diverse in terms of age, ethnicity, race, socioeconomic status and life experience, but one commonality is that they are all at least 23 years old.
Data collection and analysis
Data collection occurred over the course of two or three scheduled conversational interviews with each participant over a five-month period. I spent an average of six hours with each participant in a setting of the participant’s choosing. This included coffee shops, participant homes and public libraries. Participants were encouraged to use a pseudonym to protect the anonymity of their story as much as possible. Each of the interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed by the researcher, which allowed for the voices of the students to tell their own stories, throughout the data analysis process. The interviews focused on each students’ educational journey. The women shared stories about trying college as a traditional student, stopping out for motherhood, returning to school while paying student loans and challenges with paying for tuition. Stories of individual struggles often emerged as did topics about college-choice in adulthood, learning about options and the role finances played in their decision to attend college. The students’ perceptions of the financial investment they were making, as well as conversations about the extent to which they anticipated their lives improving by earning a degree, emerged at different stages of the data collection process.
Using a continuous ‘Three C’s’ (codes, categories and concepts) circular model process of analysis, described by Lichtman (2005), I used initial codes of ‘personal challenge’ and ‘systemic barrier’ to identify elements of the conversations with participants that connected to the themes in the literature. Themes were grouped into categories and/or subcategories based on codes, such as ‘family’ and ‘debt’. Finally, larger subcategories were identified and situated within relevant literature, such as ‘enrolment patterns’.
Findings
The intent of this research was to identify financial challenges and barriers that prevented adult women from completing their college degree. The findings were broken into the main categories of personal challenges and system barriers. In terms of personal challenges women spoke of their childhood as the beginning of their college journey and the impact that had on their higher education trajectory. The cost of living and the expenses required to fulfil responsibilities as well as the impact of motherhood on the drive to attend college were also significant. Additionally, there are non-financial factors that contributed to higher education access for many of these women. A number of system barriers also emerged. Financial holds placed by institutions, completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), and the process of transferring institutions played a role in each of the women’s trajectory. Finally, the lack of information as a systemic barrier. Several of these findings are discussed below.
Experience of childhood
The journey to higher education looks different for everyone. The path to being an adult student started in childhood for many of these women. The exposure that each woman had to the concept of higher education and post-secondary opportunities impacted the decision to attend or not attend college after high school. It is also clear that the financial struggle in adulthood is often a result of financial struggles felt in childhood. That financial and physical instability of the family and the ‘sometimes-poor choices’ (Rachelle, interview #1) made as teenagers were often a result of systemic structures and had an influence on the women of this study. The majority of the women had exposure to college-going messaging throughout their lives, leading some to go to college right after high school completion as traditional-aged students. Some of the women received only minimal exposure on and off, almost accidentally, throughout their childhood, while others grew up knowing they were going to college because of exposure they received both at home and in the school system. The level of academic preparation in childhood was also impactful in the higher education mindset acquired.
Esa described watching her mother attend college. She shared, ‘as a child, I remember coming downstairs and there she was … hitting the books, because that was the only time she had’. Maude also grew up with an expectation to attend college that came from her mother, who often talked of her children having the opportunity to make a better life by getting an education. Of the participants, it was Chloe who had the strongest college-going messaging at home, as it had always been an expectation of her parents that she would not only go to college, but also to earn a master’s degree. Chloe attributes this to her parents’ own level of advanced degree attainment. This intense messaging at home was coupled with the intense messaging at school that Chloe received in both public and private school settings, taking college preparatory courses from a very early age. Chloe was encouraged to search and apply to a dozen schools and had received advising on how to determine if a school was a ‘sure thing’, a ‘reach school’ and a ‘safety school’. She was admitted to almost all of the schools to which she applied and eventually chose to attend the institution both of her parents had attended. Though neither of her parents attended college, Adaia knew from a very early age that she was going to college and referenced the college counselling that she received in high school as a critical aspect to her search process. Adaia chose to attend an Historically Black Colloege or University (HBCU) because that is where she was offered the best funding, an athletic scholarship. Counter to the college-going messaging most had received, Stacey received the opposite messages about going to college. She had been told by her father growing up that she would not be going to college at all. While Stacey grew up knowing that college existed, she did not believe that college was for people like her. Several participants described financial insecurities growing up. For Adaia, it was those financial insecurities experienced during her childhood that impacted her choices for college. She knew that education would be her ticket out of poverty and sought every avenue to make this dream a reality.
In addition to financial challenges, physical instability was also referenced in this study, as specifically demonstrated in Stacey’s experience as a foster youth and then as an emancipated teenager, as well as Rachelle’s experience in moving around a lot as a child. Rachelle said, the way it was when I grew up, we would like go to Europe for a few years and then my Mom would get stationed back at [the base] and then my parents got divorced, so then I would go live with my Dad in Arkansas for a while and then I would come back to [base], so I was always coming back to the same place, but so much time was passing in between, so I did not really bond with anybody.
The need to contribute to the financial and physical wellness of their families growing up was a strong burden for these women, as most started working at a young age, like Adaia, whose income as a teenager contributed to the family income. This gave her a greater understanding of expenses and the financial struggle of her family very early on, further impacting her desire for a stable career after attending college.
‘I dropped out of high school. I went to four different high schools and finally decided it was all just nonsense and dropped out my senior year’, Esa described. In 2011, 25% of American high school students had dropped out between 9th and 12th grade (Kanter, 2011). This is one example of the choices made in teenage years and the impact of those choices on higher education. Several of the women in this study left high school prior to graduation and went on to earn a GED later. ‘In high school, I was really smart and really stupid all at the same time’, Rachelle recalled. ‘I did really well in school, when I was in school…I ditched a lot…and ended up dropping out of school in 10th grade’. Looking back, the choice to leave school was seen as a poor decision or a misstep by these women.
These childhood experiences, while decades in the past, demonstrate the impact that every day family decisions and conversations had on the ideas that shaped the views about the purpose, importance and attainability of higher education. The type of post-secondary education they each felt they deserved and could afford, as well as the ambition and motivation they each developed eventually, led to either attending college for the first time as an adult or returning to earn their college degree as an adult student.
Cost of living
Financial struggle to pay for an education does not occur in isolation. Those struggling to pay tuition as adults are also often struggling to pay rent, afford groceries, obtain reliable transportation and cover medical expenses. Consistent with the literature on post-traditional students (Soares, 2013), the women in this study are often the wage-earners for their families, either because they are a single parent and sole income provider (Ana and Rachelle) or they are working to support themselves (Chloe and Adaia). Maude and Stacey are both a part of a dual-income household now after spending a portion of their adulthood as single-mothers attending classes and Laurel and Esa consistently maintained employment to contribute to a dual-income home while they were in school. For each of them, the need to work was not only to cover the cost of attending college, but to cover the cost of living. Paying the rent or mortgage, utilities, transportation, childcare and food were all mentioned as the life expenses that factored into the equation of paying for a college degree. Stacey and Adaia talk about these and other expenses as responsibilities they had even in their youth. Stacey describes this, ‘I am the only high school senior that, if I wanted senior pictures, I would have to pay for that. And I was paying rent, I was the only high schooler paying rent….I had to attain health insurance!’ Adaia was a student-athlete in high school and used that skill to propel her into college. She was responsible for covering all the expenses related to those sports on her own as a teenager as well as for helping her family pay bills. Attending college was her escape from these responsibilities. The expense of college tuition presented a unique conundrum for these eight women, as it can for all loan borrowers, regardless of age or economic status. Borrowers can get loan money to go to school, but they can also use this money to help with living expenses. Using additional federal loan money was often the only option these women had to pay for basic living expenses. As is true for many women in the workforce, a few of these participants spoke of taking time off from paid employment to stay home with children at different points in their lives. This allowed them to save on the expense of childcare, but along with that, meant a sacrifice in family income that could have been used for tuition. Rachelle spoke about the cost of raising children, you know the older they get, the more expensive their stuff gets. You can’t buy the little kid shoes anymore, you have to buy the adult-sized shoes. And they want stuff! They want the same stuff you wanted when you were their age, like they want to fit in. You are trying to give them everything….
The cost of maintaining a lifestyle did not always accommodate the additional expense of college tuition and the subsequent fees such as books and technology, which led the women to taking time off of school periodically. This trend is consistent with what has been happening to adult women college students across the nation for some time, as Levine and Nidiffer found in 1996. As these women eventually found their way back to college in some cases, over and over again, the ability to pay the tuition bill was significant in their ability to pursue their degree. Even when finances were going okay, the sudden life emergency, such as a car breakdown, had a significant impact on completing school. Chloe jokes that she ‘has had more car trauma than anyone ever should - culminating with it catching on fire’ at one point. Having to balance the decision about whether or not she could afford a new car against being able to go to school that term, she had to borrow additional money to do both. A broken vehicle could be the one thing that prevents persistence of higher education for many.
Impact of motherhood
Six of the women in this study are mothers. One quarter of today’s college students are student parents (Field, 2017). In 2012, 4.8 million college students were also parents, which was a 30% increase from just a decade before (Field, 2017). Paulsen and St John (2002) indicate that the educational attainment of women is significant in their own children’s engagement with education. The mothers in this study believe that their children will benefit from watching them go to college. This belief serves as one of several intrinsic motivators for these women to keep moving forward with their education. Despite the age of their children, these six mothers attribute their children as both the reason to complete their degree as well as one of the factors that prevented them from completing at a pace they would have preferred. Rumbaut (2005) indicates that early childbearing has become the greatest source of disruption for women choosing to pursue an education. While both men and women may be responsible for the care of children, childbearing does have a greater effect on women’s educational trajectory than it does of men (Rumbaut, 2005). Often, it is the life turning points, as Rumbaut (2005) and Levine and Nidiffer (1996) define, that serve as catalysts for long-term behavioural change, which open doors to post-secondary training and education for many women. Both Rachelle and Stacey referenced the birth of their daughters as this life turning point that served as the final push to getting each into school to complete their degree. Interestingly, each of them already had sons. However, it was the addition of a baby girl to their families that had them considering higher education. In Stacey’s words, ‘it was after I had my daughter and she is my youngest, where I really felt the drive to go back’.
Some barriers include guilt and resentment; guilt for how few hours are left to spend with children and resentment for how children get in the way of completing schoolwork (Montiegel, 1999). The mothers in this study referenced elements of this paradox. Having to balance childcare responsibilities with schoolwork just did not work for a few of them. Maude, Ana and Stacey reference stopping out of school, for a period of time, in order to focus on caring for young children. When they each found their way back to school, they also had to take fewer classes than they had wanted in order to care for those children. Laurel and Esa each gave birth to their second child while they were enrolled and each took a term off of school to physically recover from childbirth before returning to their studies. Often, adult women are motivated to go back to school to be a role model for their own children (Montiegel, 1999). Stacey describes this, ‘I can’t tell my kids to go to college if I did not go to college. And you want them to have a better future too and to do that, you have to have a degree’. Rachelle has a son that is starting to look at college and is proud to brag that his Mom goes to college. She says of her kids ‘they all just think it is really cool!’ She is hopeful that her children will be more inclined to go to school and get a degree because they have watched her do the same. While Ana’s children are older, they also had an impact on her college enrolment. Her youngest daughter enrolled at a four-year institution and encouraged her mother to re-enrol as well. Ana followed her daughter’s advice and now they attend together.
The challenge of raising kids while staying committed to their own education was referenced in several ways by these participants. Stacey mentioned, time is always the challenge. How can I be committed to something 100% and then also have them committed to a sport or activity or something 100%? Either a practice falls on a class day or the game falls on that day.
Balancing the commitments of her children goes beyond just taking care of them. She struggles with wanting to be there for them, to watch them score the goal and celebrate their success. She also brought up the issue of allowing others to help, do I trust this random person to take my kid to practice? Either you say no, you are not going to practice that day….or you trust a stranger, who I am sure is a decent human being to take your kid to practice. So, there are those types of conflicts constantly.
Federal policies
In order to access financial support from the government to attend college, one must go through the first step of completing the FAFSA. While this process is intended to help people go to college, the process can also serve as a barrier. Adaia’s story highlights this. When completing the financial aid application, one must submit their tax information. As a high school student, Adaia did just that. It was through this process that she learned her parents had not submitted the correct tax paperwork. Upon trying to help her parents do this step, which would help her, she learned that her parents had not been filing taxes for some time. To this day, she is not sure her parents have ever filed taxes. To combat this barrier, she tried to complete the FAFSA without her parents tax information only to find out the system would not allow her to because she was under the age of 23 years. As she was determined to go to college, she then pursued the option of becoming emancipated from her parents simply to qualify for federal financial assistance but again ran into barriers. Adaia was not able to become emancipated and could not provide the tax information required so she was left out of the process to obtain aid for college. Essentially, her educational opportunity was lost because of choices her parents made, but also because of the system in place.
The majority of women in this study reached the maximum amount of money they were permitted to borrow from the government prior to completing their degree. The total amount one can borrow in loans is $57,000. This amount of money may be enough to finance a college degree for a traditionally aged student who attends an affordable institution, receives financial support from their parents and stays at that institution for the duration of degree completion. Yet, for many of the women in this study and many adult students around the country, it is not enough money to complete a degree. This is due, in part, to the need to use some of this money for living expenses, taking courses that did not transfer from institution to institution and taking (and paying for) courses that were not needed at all for degree completion. Participants shared frustrations about reaching their loan limits. Rachelle, Laurel and Stacey were prohibited from receiving additional federal money, mid-way through their degree, because of the rule preventing borrowers to exceed $57,000. Laurel overcame the barrier because she was the recipient of an independent donor-funded scholarship to see her through degree completion. Stacey was able to use a tuition benefit offered through her employer and paid the remainder out of pocket. Rachelle is unsure of how she will fund the remainder of her degree without federal funding.
Another systemic issue that is embedded in-between the government funding system and the college course requirements themselves is that of remedial education. Incoming college students are often deemed remedial in areas of math, writing or reading. Institutions can bridge the gap between the basic skills students know and what they ought to know to be successful in college-level coursework by offering preparatory courses. However, as Stacey experienced, these courses are not eligible for loan dollars nor do they transfer to other institutions. Because Stacey was told that she needed these courses to be allowed to continue and because she could not use loan money for them, she paid for those classes out of pocket. Years later, learning that those courses never transferred to her subsequent institutions, she feels like she threw that money away. Many of the women described the need to be a part-time student, but that part-time status meant that they wanted to take classes each term, including summer, so that they could keep moving with their education. Federal financial aid looks different for a part-time student, and there is currently no aid available in the summer terms. These policies have a negative effect on adult learners. Finally, borrowers are prevented from accessing additional money if they have defaulted on paying back their loans. There are students, for example in this study, who are unable to repay loans because of being stuck in a low-wage job. The only way to get out of poverty would be to get a better paying position which is not attainable due to the lack of a college degree. Ana was unable to get financial help to continue college and earn her degree because of being in this default status. She eventually paid back some of her loans to reinstate her eligibility, known as loan rehabilitation. Ana’s situation represents a number of adult learners who are stuck in this cycle.
Institutional policies
Institutional policies greatly affect the way in which students are able to move through to degree completion. Several of the women had experienced a financial hold from their institutions. These holds were often instituted when a tuition bill was not paid on-time or when an additional fee such as a parking fine or library fine went unpaid. Often these holds prevented the students from registering for the subsequent term. In some cases, the students were able to pay the fee, register and move on. A pattern for several was that they would get delayed in registering for classes, which would cause them to not get into the classes they needed, meaning they would have to sit out for a term. This financial hold had a significant impact on Adaia, as she applied to college as an adult and had to submit transcripts from her prior college experience. In trying to acquire transcripts from the institution she had attended almost a decade earlier, she learned that she could not access her transcripts because she owed money to the institution. Not only did she owe the tuition from that one term, she also owed a significant amount more because late fees had accrued for almost 10 years while the bill went unpaid.
Attending multiple institutions as a traditional-aged student was a consistent theme, as all of the participants except Rachelle attended more than one institution along the way. Most of the women attended some type of post-secondary institution within a year of graduating high school. Others waited a few years beyond high school to start. Laurel attended a prep academy upon high school graduation with the intention of applying to a military institution. Her original goal was to go to a military academy for her college education, but her academic scores in high school did not allow her acceptance into any institution. Through the application process, she learned that her ACT and SAT test scores were not high enough and her grades were not going to help her either. She was encouraged to attend the preparatory academy after high school and apply again to the military institutions later. Laurel did have the ‘traditional’ experience of moving away from home, even out of state to attend this preparatory school, where she would not be earning any college credit. She describes the school as ‘structured, very structured….it was not militant-structured by any means, but they push the academics so that you can get your test scores up and there is a focus on fitness, so your activity level and your academic level’ were described as the purpose of the institution. The academic and physical training of the preparatory school lasted for one semester and then students were expected to select an institution to attend for the second semester. The school that Laurel attended was even further away from the home in which she grew up. In the end, she was unable to transfer any of these credits to the institution from which she graduated. It was a wasted year of time and financial resources for her. Esa’s first step into post-secondary education came after she completed her General Education Diploma (GED), when she was 21 years old. Though, at that age she was still defined as a ‘traditional’ student in terms of age, she was attending part-time and only stayed for a semester or two prior to attending a youth missionary school and eventually re-enrolling in community college, in another state. By this time, she was 24 years old and fit the governments’ definition of a non-traditional student. Each of these seven women had earned credit by taking and paying for prior courses. As they transferred from institution to institution they learned that not every school would accept the credit for courses they had earned.
Lack of information
The high school guidance counsellors, college information offices and supportive households were all things of the past, as the women had to learn about going to college in adulthood through a variety of other means. The information gap in terms of accessing and affording college gets larger as a woman leaves the high school setting. The eight women of this study were all predisposed to attend college as adults, as discussed above, through exposure in their home and their educational environments. For some, the college experience that came immediately after high school provided the initial exposure to higher learning, and when they wanted to advance later in life, they had familiarity with what college was in terms of academic expectations. In the absence of intentionally structured opportunities to acquire information on how to search for a college, most relied on the experiences of the people they were exposed to. Rachelle describes seeing her high school peers posting photos and announcing their college completion on social media, which kept the idea of college in the back of her mind. Yet, it was not until she began to interact with professionals in her field who had been to college that she began to ask how she could get there. Additionally, watching television shows and movies that highlighted college served as inspiration to inquire more. The often sensationalized view of college that is portrayed on television and in the movies may not have given a true depiction of what college would be like, but it was enough to peak curiosity. These varying levels of exposure combined with encouragement from others in their lives led them to take the first steps.
The media was significant for Rachelle as she referenced listening to radio commercials for years before eventually deciding to make the call and learn more. In some cases that information gathering and planning took several years, as Rachelle describes, and for others it was instant. Esa also heard about an institution through media, a basic Internet search in her case. She was compelled to start immediately and was enrolled within months of her initial search. Word of mouth and encouragement from employers and mentors were also helpful. Stacey and Rachelle were both encouraged by their immediate supervisor to look at options after being told they had great potential for advancement and simply lacked the degree for those opportunities. The initial search to locate the school, however, was up to them. Traditionally aged students generally search for a variety of schools weighing the pros and cons of attending each school, evaluating academic rigour and prestige, comparing financial aid packages and selecting a college major. The women in this study however, often only searched to find one school, and then pursued that institution.
Once these participants found their way to an institution and chose to attend, it was the personnel at the institutions themselves that became the primary source of information in terms of academic and financial planning. Friends were also significant in understanding college and financial aid as an adult, as Rachelle, Maude and Stacey all referenced watching friends go through the process first. For Ana, it was watching her own daughters go through the college-search process, enroll in classes and navigate the financial aid process that encouraged her to go back to school. She learned from what they were doing and attributes them in helping her through the process.
Discussion
By 2013, 85% of the college-going population was considered a post-traditional learner based on the criteria established by Soares (2013). The stories shared here illustrate what some already know about the adult population and also illuminate where more policy is needed to better support their educational endeavour. Because the personal challenges and systemic barriers are multi-faceted, so must be the solutions. From federal and state policymakers to institutional leaders and frontline service personnel, each have a role in supporting adult women undergraduate students.
While it may not be realistic to expect all necessary financial supports to come directly from the federal government, it is realistic to expect the government to establish a long-term financial strategy that aligns with national goals (Callen, 2012). National policy is necessary to providing financial access to quality programmes for adult learning. Kanter (2011) reports that the programmes currently designed for adult learners are addressing a mere 3% of the identified need to fill the knowledge and employment deficits the United States is experiencing. National leaders must be accountable for developing a policy framework that allows interested individuals to take advantage of educational access. One way to do this is to adjust the federal financial aid process. Increasing the amount of the Pell Grant; designing a grant program for child-care assistance; developing a mechanism to assist borrowers wanting to continue their education while rehabbing their loan default status; allowing students to use financial aid as a part-time student; and expanding grant and loan opportunities for summertime and short-term courses are a few examples to consider. Callen (2012) is adamant that educational funding policy must reflect the 21st-century demographics and indicates there must be better alignment between federal educational policy and the established priorities addressing societal and economic needs. The college-going demographic has drastically changed from the previous generation, yet the strategies of how America pays for college has not.
In lieu of change at the federal level, individual states have made significant strides in assisting with adult college completion, and some of these efforts are directly related to financing. As of November 2016, 23 states considered legislation regarding free tuition, but the majority of those are continuing to address only the needs of traditionally aged students (Pingel et al., 2016). Financial aid at the state level must account for adult learners with intentional programmes that meet the unique needs, such as funding the part-time student. In addition, states could develop policy in alignment with other social service agencies to support the living expenses and dependent-care expenses that slow down or prevent adult student college completion. State leaders also need to understand the data regarding near-completers specific to that state. Re-engaging students to complete their degree is critical to bolster the knowledge-base in the state. Better serving the needs of adults accessing higher education and persisting through degree completion will require broader political commitment among both state and national policymakers, but also a willingness among institutions to reconsider institutional policies and practices as well.
An institutional goal must be to work on additional retention measures to prevent this attrition. Climate and culture need to be addressed for the post-traditional student. For adult students in particular, institutional leaders need to evaluate course and student-service delivery models, make campuses more child-friendly, assist with academic and social integration and offer more flexible scheduling. In other words, institutions must be equipped to handle the unique needs of adult students. Field (2017) describes a programme at Endicott College that goes even further. In a programme designed for adult women with children, Endicott is seeing a 68% retention rate for this population by enhancing what is available on campus. Residence halls are set aside for women with children; children are welcome in the dining halls and eat for free; daycare subsidies are provided as a part of the financial aid package; and parenting classes are made available. The institution acknowledges the expense of such a programme but indicates that it is worth the investment in women.
With a growing adult population and the state of decline in funding higher education across the nation, institutional survival will depend on meeting the needs of adult students. Both, four-year public and private institutions need well-developed degree-completion programmes designed to include alternative delivery models for both in-person and on-line learning, truncated courses that do not fit into a typical semester or quarter term, and courses that meet on the evening and weekends, and evaluate for life experience that may earn college credit. A trend among adult education advocates promotes the recognition of life experience through college credit. Competency Based Education and Prior Learning Assessment are two ways that adult students are earning credit for what they already know and the life experience they bring to the college classroom (Sherman & Klein-Collins, 2015). More institutions, such as the university in which this study took place, could benefit from offering such programmes to help accelerate an adult student’s time to degree and reduce the cost of tuition to that individual student, at very little cost to the school. Many institutions use a variety of mediums to communicate and market their programmes. Institutions need to be very intentional in how they market to the adult learner. Being open on the front end about the cost of a degree and what the commitment will look like is critical, as is honesty in delivery and support offerings. Scholarships need to be specifically designated for adult post-traditional students and cannot be limited to full-time enrolment. Institutions ought to have emergency money available, specifically designated for adult students to apply for. This type of occasional emergency funding can help adult women with a childcare expense, books for one term, rent money, assistance in repairing a broken vehicle, etc. This type of aid could be used so that students are not living off of loan money. While these funds could be institutional, one strategy could be to establish and cultivate a donor-base whose intention is to provide grants to assist with child-care while the parent is in school or perhaps grants for additional school expenses such as transportation and textbooks or other supplies. A key responsibility of institutions is to ensure that frontline service personnel have what they need to be helpful to these students. These frontline service personnel include financial aid counsellors, academic advisors, admissions representatives, career counsellors and cashier’s office staff. Academic advisors need to be in constant contact with adult students and need to have a coordinated effort with the financial aid staff to ensure that the whole student is being cared for in the institutional environment and to avoid the run-around that often characterizes college campuses. These staff members need to have a skill set that includes patience, listening, communication, efficiency, problem-solving and genuine interest in helping adult students succeed. If these are not natural skill sets, institutional leaders need to provide professional development to help frontline personnel acquire those skills.
Limitations
Opportunities for future research of post-traditional populations enrolled in higher education programmes are seemingly limitless. While this study was conducted in the United States, the findings may speak to a larger international phenomenon that must be further explored. There are many adult men also trying to pursue a bachelor’s degree and they must be included in future research to broaden the understanding of the struggles of adult students in general and to highlight additional financial challenges facing this population. The voices of women students attending community colleges are missing from this study and should be considered in future research. Alfonso (2006) points out that students pursuing a vocational training programme are 12% more likely to drop out of school than those students working towards an associate’s degree. The stories told by women and men who are currently working towards a credential at a community college or have stopped-out from this setting may have a different and equally important experience to highlight additional deficits in the system. Perhaps the most significant population to consider in future research are the women who have been unable to persist and have stopped out for a period of time or dropped out entirely. These eight women were able to overcome the challenges and barriers they described, allowing them to persist. This is not true for all adult students and the stories of women who have had to discontinue their education indefinitely will undoubtedly have additional information to provide about their challenges to stay in school. The opportunity to research adult women who never went to college, but perhaps wanted to or would like too, but do not know how or where to start would also provide insight for institutions to better serve and reach out.
Conclusion
If post-secondary education is essential to the future of the United States, then the structures in which one can access college must change and the way in which education is delivered must quickly evolve. Particularly for adult women, the value of a college education is significant. While research points to the benefits for the individual, family and society, little is acknowledged in regard to the financial challenges that women, specifically, face in obtaining their degree. Exploring the stories of adult women pursuing higher education can offer significant contributions to the expanding discourse surrounding financial aid, paying for college and adult college completion.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
