Where Adult Learners Re-enroll (and Why)
In today’s competitive education marketplace, adult learners want options and they can “shop around” to find the flexibility and support that aligns with their needs. It’s up to your institution to strengthen its position within this marketplace.
Colleges are actively seeking to diversify their student populations to counteract the anticipated enrollment cliff, marked by a decline in traditional-age students under 25, driven by demographic shifts and declining birth rates. One critical strategy is to engage the growing number of adults with some college, no credential (SCNC).
In our first post in this series that analyzes this year’s National Student Clearinghouse report on the SCNC population, we looked at who these adult learners are. Now, let’s look at where they are re-enrolling and how your institution can become a place where more adult learners want to re-enroll to finish their degree.
Adult learners transfer at high rates
This year’s report showed that, of the 943,000-plus adult learners who returned to college in the 2022-23 academic year, 67% chose to attend an institution in a different sector. And, according to the report, if they aren’t returning to their home institutions, adult learners are most likely enrolling at a community college or a primarily online institution (POI). Reasons for this include:
- Closer to home: Many adult learners prefer institutions closer to their homes to balance family and work life.
- Financial constraints: Community colleges and POIs often have lower tuition fees, making education more affordable.
- Academic/program fit: Programs that align better with career goals attract adult learners.
- Flexibility: Online courses and flexible schedules make it easier for adults to manage their studies alongside other responsibilities.
- Supportive environment: Institutions offering robust support services for adult learners are more appealing.
The data reveals that to attract adult learners, your institution needs to do more than outreach your former students. In today’s competitive education marketplace, adult learners want options and they can “shop around” to find the flexibility and support that aligns with their needs. It’s up to your institution to strengthen its position within this marketplace. That means offering adult learners the services they need, like support for adjusting to a new institution, a streamlined credit transfer process, articulation agreements with other institutions, and online or hybrid courses that work for adults with many responsibilities outside of school.
Popularity of POIs continues to grow
POIs are gaining market share by out-marketing and out-serving traditional institutions, spending millions on multi-channel advertising to appeal to adult learners. And it’s working—this year’s NSC report found that their share of adult learner re-enrollment grew by 24% year over year.
However, POIs often don’t offer support or resources tailored to adult learners pursuing credentials. The first-year credential earning rate for learners re-enrolling at POIs was just 2.2% in both 2021-22 and 2022-23, the lowest credential earning rate after two years.
A strategy to attract SCNC adults needs to convey value to each learner and differentiate your institution from others. What makes you the best match for them? One way is to demonstrate that you offer the online support systems and career services adult learners need to improve credential completion rates. Hybrid models of learning give adult learners the flexibility they need, an opportunity to make in-person connections, and access to on-campus resources.
Most institutions don’t have tens of millions to dedicate to this essential enrollment stream alone, so they turn to a trusted partner to remain competitive. ReUp’s unique combination of data, technology, marketing, and human touch provides insights into why learners stopped out, why they want to return, and the barriers that prevent them from doing so. This data informs our partners’ strategies and addresses friction points, so more learners can return to their home institutions to complete their credentials.
To remain competitive, institutions need to personalize outreach
Re-enrolling a stopout learner is different from engaging a traditional-age student. You’re not always competing against the same institutions, and adult learners have different priorities when choosing a school. Remember, learners who left before achieving their credentials were once part of your institution, and are likely to return if they feel welcomed and supported.
Identifying obstacles that led learners to leave school is critical. Often, learners leave for personal reasons but sometimes the barriers are at the institutional level. Unfortunately, higher education continues to burden learners with removing those barriers, instead of taking a more active role. Institutions that partner with ReUp do so because they want to know more about why learners stopped out and want to create a more proactive, one-on-one support style for their former students.
How Old Dominion University found new ways to support adult learners
Old Dominion University (ODU), a ReUp partner, noticed that many of its students were stopping out and transferring to community colleges for financial reasons and life balance and professional commitments. The university faced the very real risk of losing students to more affordable academic options, as well as to the workforce.
ReUp re-engaged ODU’s stopout students, leveraging technology and patented predictive scoring to understand their backstory, motivations for earning a credential, and their relationships (with themselves, the institution, family, finances, and work). This allowed coaches to provide the right resources at the right time. ReUp’s coaching methodology proved very effective for ODU, resulting in a retention rate 15 points higher for returning students than for similarly at-risk first-year students.
ODU Results
Adult learners outreached
Adult learners re-enrolled
Graduated
Tuition recovered
Innovate so adult learners can thrive
Investing in the SCNC population creates opportunities for institutions to innovate in program delivery, making education more accessible and relevant to adult learners and to the modern workforce. Attracting and retaining adult learners makes institutions more flexible in the marketplace and, in some cases, more profitable.
If your institution wants to attract more adult learners and increase re-enrollment rates, consider partnering with ReUp. To learn more about how ReUp supports our partners’ adult learner strategies, read our case studies and follow us on LinkedIn.
In part three of this series, we’ll explore the topic of perseverance, highlighted for the first time this year in the NSCRC report. Why does perseverance matter and how can your institution improve it for re-enrolled adult learners?
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.