With age comes additional responsibilities. Students enrolled in adult education courses typically require class schedules that can accommodate work and family schedules that are not often flexible. As such, nontraditional students, often older and in long-term career positions with families and mortgages to pay, are increasingly drawn to the flexibility afforded by online universities and colleges. Time constraints can be overcome when students take single classes or pursue an advanced degree in their own time, at their own pace.
While the trend may be for aging learners to flock to online educational opportunities, the retention rate for those students is typically lower than those attending brick and mortar institutions. Instructors have a more difficulty identifying potential problems with students in time to give necessary help. At the same time, older students, isolated from other students in the classroom, may give in to the pressures of work and family more readily when they don’t have fellow students, instructors and advisors to whom they are accountable.
Educators realize that adult learners bring a wealth of life experience to their studies and have come to understand the importance of allowing adult students the ability to participate in developing their own structured classes and delivery of information. The aging process makes adult learners more interested in taking courses that have an immediate impact on their careers, rather than postponing gratification for future goals. The trend is for educators to personalize individual training programs to meet the needs of adult students.
While life experience can enhance the instructional planning for adult education implementation, it can also have a negative impact on the outcomes of the coursework. The aging process brings with it negative experiences that color an adult’s view of authority, new ideas and changing technology. As cognitive abilities decline, older students are more likely to fall back on old ideas and patterns that may not be especially productive in a learning environment. Trends suggest that educators take an active role in understanding their students and their backgrounds when planning courses to take into consideration the impact of the new information, creating a more diverse planning process to meet the needs of older learners as they age.