Building Adult-Friendly Colleges Amid Shifting Demographics and Workforce Needs
ReUp’s Adult Friendliness Maturity Model helps colleges and universities adapt to shifting demographics and workforce demands by building environments where adult learners thrive.
Higher education faces a pressing challenge: the enrollment cliff. The number of 18-year-olds in the U.S. is declining and is expected to continue through 2030. This demographic shift, along with workforce demands for higher education, creates both challenges and opportunities. By 2031, 55% of jobs will require a post-secondary degree, but only 44% of adults currently meet this requirement.
Adding to the issue, one in six U.S. adults—over 40 million people—have some college, no credential (SCNC). These learners are an untapped resource for both colleges and the workforce, making it essential for institutions to re-engage them and eliminate the barriers to degree completion.
ReUp is tackling these challenges by creating a comprehensive model that will help institutions break down systemic barriers faced by adult learners. At AACRAO 2025, we introduced our Adult Friendliness Maturity Model during Beyond the Classroom: Evaluating the Adult-Friendliness of Higher Education Institutions, a presentation with Kalamazoo Valley Community College. Together, we shared how the model will help colleges and universities adapt to shifting demographics and workforce demands by building environments where adult learners thrive.
Using the Adult Friendliness Maturity Model as a framework
ReUp’s Adult Friendliness Maturity Model will act as a framework to help institutions better serve adult learners. It’s designed to provide a structured way for colleges to assess their current practices and systematically improve their support for SCNC learners. The framework evaluates an institution’s “maturity” or capacity across several key focus areas: commitment to adult learners, affordability, academic structures, enrollment practices, and student services.
The model includes three core levels of assessment:
- Beginning: Institutions starting to recognize adult learners as a priority. There are few or no dedicated programs, and services for this group are either nonexistent or inconsistent.
- Maturing: Schools have established foundational strategies, such as some targeted advising or flexible degree pathways, but often lack comprehensive services or scalable solutions.
- Excelling: These institutions have a history of exceptional support for adult learners. They demonstrate long-term commitment through leadership buy-in, specialized staffing, and highly tailored student services that align with the unique needs of returning adults.
The model breaks down what success looks like at each level, so institutions have a guide for how to reach the next one.
Admissions & Enrollment
- Communications
- Engaging website
- Learner-friendly language
- Targeted outreach
- Degree pathways
- Seamless transfers
- Credit for prior learning
- Orientations, financial advising
Targeted outreach
Adult and returning students often face unique barriers that require tailored engagement and resources.
General outreach with no focus on adult learners.
Targeted outreach to adult learners exists but is limited.
Targeted outreach is tailored to learners’ needs and goals, such as career progression.
Affordability
- Financial support
- Scholarships, grants
- Waived fees
- Reduced-cost materials
- Debt forgiveness
Institutional debt forgiveness
Even minimal debt to the institution may be a barrier for returning learners. Forgiving debt lets them return and complete their degree.
The institution offers no debt forgiveness.
The institution offers up to $1,500 in debt forgiveness to returning learners.
The institution offers $1,500 or more in debt relief to returning learners.
Increasing adult learner enrollment and improving persistence
Once fully developed, the Adult Friendliness Maturity Model will help institutions transform how they interact with adult learners and ultimately boost both enrollment figures and student success metrics. Institutions will be able to identify and target friction points in the learner experience, ensuring that returning learners find a clear and supportive path back to college.
By aligning with the concepts used to inform the Adult Friendliness Maturity Model, KVCC successfully redefined its institutional strategy to better support adult learners. Here’s how they did it:
- Recognized that 73% of students are part-time and 47% are aged 20-29, focusing on initiatives tailored to working adults, parents, and returning students.
- Implemented broad scholarship access to make education more accessible.
- Introduced debt forgiveness programs to remove financial barriers for returning students.
- Proactively screened students for financial aid to ensure no one was left behind.
These efforts led to:
- Over 3,933 re-enrollments since 2018.
- An average of 600 adult learner re-enrollments per year.
KVCC’s approach shows the power of intentionally investing in support structures for adult learners, improving student outcomes while maintaining stable enrollment amid changing demographics.
A systematic approach to engaging, enrolling and supporting adult learners
The challenges of declining traditional student demographics and evolving workforce demands call for innovative strategies in higher education. ReUp’s Adult Friendliness Maturity Model will provide a much-needed framework, helping institutions assess their commitment to affordability, academic flexibility, enrollment practices, and student services and make progress in each area. By redefining approaches to meet the unique needs of adult learners, institutions can not only boost enrollment rates but also unlock the potential of millions of SCNC learners across the country.
For more inspiring success stories and actionable insights, explore our partner case studies. To stay informed about our latest tools, strategies, and updates in higher ed, follow ReUp on LinkedIn.
Let’s start the conversation
Schedule a call with a ReUp team member to learn more about what a ReUp partnership could do for your institution.