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Work and reading have been getting in the way of my cricket watching, specifically the Women’s Premier League in India, now interestingly sponsored by ChatGPT alongside Tata and other major brands. So what was I reading while I wasn’t watching cricket?
Front end problems
An excellent blog post from Ithaka on Improving the Share of Adult Learners at Four-Year Institutions prompted some hard thinking on my part about adult learners in U.S. higher education.
Ithaka first provides a definition.
Adult learners are usually defined as students who are at least 25 years old at the time of enrollment, whether it’s their first time enrolling or not.
But, contrary to what I would have guessed, adult learners have traditionally made up a far larger share of enrolled students at private nonprofit institutions than at public four-year schools. Their share of enrollment at four-year public’s has also been declining over time.
Adult learners comprise a smaller share of the enrollment at public institutions in Fall 2023 than they did in Fall 2013. In Fall 2023, adults comprised just over 12 percent of enrollment at four-year public institutions, down from almost 18 percent of enrollment in Fall 2013. [snip] During this same period, adult learner enrollment stayed fairly flat at four-year private, not-for-profit institutions; around 20 percent of undergraduates were adults.
