Nontraditional Students Are The New College Majority, Report Finds

Forbes

9 hours ago

More than 40% of higher education students are older than 22, and almost 70% are holding down jobs ... More while taking courses, finds a new report on the "new majority" college student.
Nontraditional students now constitute what a just-released report is calling the 'new majority" of higher education learners in the United States.
Titled The New Majority Learner Report 2025, the study was prepared by Genio, a provider of its popular Genio Notes and other education support tools and technology geared toward helping students deal with different kinds of learning challenges.
Using data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System and the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, the study describes the multiple, intersecting characteristics of non-traditional students, who now, it claims, comprise an ever-increasing percentage of the student body in higher education. It also explores the special needs and unique learning challenges faced by this group.
According to the report, the 'typical' college student is not enrolled full-time and is not a recent high school graduate. Instead, the following three characteristics capture the changing picture of today's college students.
First, they are often what the report terms 'time poor," requiring them to multi-task in several areas of their lives, including taking courses while they are working and forcing them to juggle family responsibilities, career demands, and financial challenges while studying.
Second, they tend to be academically underprepared for college-level work. Included in this group are first-generation college students, international learners who are new to America's higher education culture, veterans, and individuals from underrepresented communities.
And third, many face individual barriers such as being physically disabled, neurodiverse or needing to learn English as a second language.
More specifically the report found that:
The report also recommends five strategies that colleges and universities can use to help support these traditionally underserved students, including:
These interventions can be expensive so adequate funding is a challenge, but the consequences of not catering to the special needs of the increasing number of new majority students can result in even greater costs to institutions both in terms of reduced revenue but also in lost opportunities for educational success by a greater proportion of students.
'Especially as higher education faces the coming enrollment cliff and, in the U.S., uncertainty regarding international students, institutions are facing a crisis of revenue,' said Dave Tucker, founder and CEO at Genio in a press release. 'They need to find ways to retain more students, which means improving support for their new majority learners,' Tucker added.