Across the country, millions of students are heading back to college for a new school year. But the scene on many campuses is probably not the one you’re picturing. Today, there are fewer traditional sophomores moving back into their dorms after a summer off, and far more adults returning to campus after years away.
Following decades of steady growth, the share of high school graduates heading straight to college has fallen, from nearly 70% a decade ago to about 60% today. My 20-year-old son decided to enroll, but I hear him and his friends talk constantly about whether the jobs they are training for will still exist when they graduate. One recent Gallup survey found that nearly half of students have considered changing their major over concerns about how AI might impact their field. Against that backdrop, it is not hard to understand why an 18-year-old might ask whether college is still worth it.
But while the answer to that question is growing more complicated, college remains one of our surest levers for promoting economic mobility. And just as Gen Z’s faith in the degree has begun to crumble, another group of Americans is betting on higher education in record numbers. More than 40 million Americans have some college credit, but no degree, and a growing share of them are looking to finish what they started. More than one million students re-enrolled during the 2023-24 academic year, the most the National Student Clearinghouse has ever recorded and a 7% increase over the year before.
They’re returning for good reason. In North Carolina, a state initiative called NC Reconnect helps community colleges reach out to adults who left school without a credential and then supports them from re-enrollment through graduation. The initiative found that those who completed a credential saw their annual earnings rise by a median of about $20,000. That’s a life-changing sum for a family. It’s also a powerful lesson for every other state watching its workforce pipeline shrink.
Of course, a credential only pays off for students who actually finish, and higher education is rarely built around the lives of returning learners. Today, nearly 20% of undergraduates are raising children, and about half work while enrolled. These students are juggling responsibilities that traditional undergraduates rarely face. Among returning students who don’t earn a credential in their first year back, fewer than 60% return for a second year.
I know what it’s like for a rigid class schedule to collide with a work shift or a sick kid. My own path through higher education was not linear. As a first-generation college student, I arrived at the University of Oregon with credits I had already earned at Portland State University and Clackamas Community College. I worked part-time through school, including work-study, to help cover my tuition. A few years into my career, I enrolled at Portland Community College to earn a legal assistant certificate. Later I went back to school again for an M.B.A., taking classes at night while I worked full-time and raised my kids. At the time, I believed my story was an exception. Now it’s becoming something of the norm.
In recent years, adult and returning learners have moved from the margins of higher education closer to its center of gravity. A handful of states have already built the infrastructure to reflect this shift, pairing outreach with academic and financial support that’s tailored for someone balancing a job and a family. Far more than just a marketing campaign urging learners to return, programs like North Carolina’s NC Reconnect are becoming models that other states are studying and adapting.
But our pop culture narrative about who goes to college hasn’t kept pace with who is actually enrolling. Movies, television, and college brochures still default to the classic image of the carefree co-ed moving into a dorm. Increasingly, that image doesn’t represent younger learners, either. Time will tell whether Gen Z keeps turning away from higher education, but the truth is that the traditionally-aged students who do enroll are also arriving with a wider range of needs than ever before. The changes colleges make for returning learners will serve Gen Z and Gen Alpha students, too.
It’s time for colleges, policymakers, and our culture to catch up to reality. Colleges should design advising, scheduling, and data systems for adult and returning learners from the start, not retrofit them as an afterthought. Policymakers should fund and scale re-enrollment initiatives with the same urgency they reserve for recruiting incoming freshmen, and they should measure success by completion, not just enrollment. And it’s worth retiring the decades-old image of “the college student” in favor of the one actually walking onto campus: the parents, full-time workers, and other adults returning to complete their degree.
Higher education, and the story we tell about who it’s for, should reflect the students who are actually showing up this fall, including those coming back to finish what they started.
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