Just what is a “traditional” and a “nontraditional” college student these days?  It seems that more and more people are going back to school as parents, taking a “gap year” after high school, and making other life decisions that used to not be the norm.  Popular culture tells us that college students are recent high school graduates, living on campus, taking remedial classes, and (hopefully) graduating four years later. But these days that narrative of the residential, collegiate experience is way off, says Alexandria Walton Radford, who heads up postsecondary education research at RTI International in North Carolina. Today’s college student is decidedly nontraditional — and has been for a while. Radford has done a lot of research on this and defines the nontraditional student as having one or more of the following characteristics:

Financially independent from their parents
Having a child or other dependent
Being a single caregiver
Lacking a traditional high school diploma
Delaying postsecondary enrollment
Attending school part time
Being employed full time

Close to 74 percent of undergrads fall into one of these categories — and about a third have two or three. Here’s a snapshot of the 17 million Americans enrolled in undergraduate higher education, according to numbers culled by the National Center for Education Statistics.

1 in 5 is at least 30 years old
About half are financially independent from their parents
1 in 4 is caring for a child
47 percent go to school part time at some point
A quarter take a year off before starting school
2 out of 5 attend a two-year community college
44 percent have parents who never completed a bachelor’s degree

As demographics shift, Radford argues, policy should follow. It’s vital that institutions look at the characteristics of their undergrad cohorts, she adds, to explore how to address their students’ unique concerns. Perhaps that means offering services like financial aid, advising or tutoring after-hours (instead of the typical 9 to 5). Maybe it means offering child care for student-parents, or extra parking for commuters. One thing for sure, says Radford, is that it’s probably time to coin a new phrase for nontraditional students, considering they are the new norm. Click here to read more.

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