CAMPUS & CAREERS GUIDE : Working Adults Have Few Options : Scheduling: Public schools rarely offer degree programs built around night classes, and costs at private colleges can be prohibitive.

Although private colleges have done big business running pricey but dependable degree programs for working adults, similar offerings remain relatively meager at California’s public universities, leaving cost-conscious students in a bind.

At prices up to $18,000 a year, evening-only bachelor’s degree programs--particularly those offering business degrees--have become a staple at private universities in recent years. But some adults who cannot afford the high price tag complain that similar programs are scarce at the more affordable state-funded Cal State and University of California systems.

Officials at the public college systems say their evening and weekend offerings are limited by financial constraints, their traditional focus on younger students and even professors who do not like teaching at night.

But education experts say that if the public universities hope to prosper they had better start trying to capitalize on the growing number of working adults who are trying to increase their marketability in a shrinking economy.

“People are realizing the traditional system just isn’t working. We can’t go on with just the traditional classes at the set [daytime] hours,” said David Stewart, an expert on adult education who recently retired as an administrator with the American Council on Education.

“Many of the ‘publics’ are being dragged kicking and screaming into this orientation,” Stewart said. “But the ‘privates’ tend to be more flexible. To stay in business, they have to be more flexible to meet the needs of working adults.”

Today, students age 25 and older make up almost half of those enrolled in college in this country, almost double the percentage in 1970. “Older students were once considered ‘non-traditional,’ but this is no longer an accurate characterization,” noted a report from the U.S. Department of Education released in April.

But in California, only one of the nine University of California campuses has a night bachelor’s degree program specifically geared toward adults with full-time jobs. And Cal State officials report only a smattering of such programs among their 22 campuses.

Although the campuses offer night courses, they lack the kind of package options needed by working adults pursuing a degree: flexible schedules that allow time for family and work obligations, courses offered frequently enough to allow students to make appropriate progress toward a degree, and yet do not take so long to complete that students drop out along the way.

Recent years of belt-tightening at public universities have resulted in many courses not being consistently offered. And according to working adult students, that has made achieving consistent progress toward a degree through night classes a risky proposition.

And that in turn helped create the demand for growing numbers of private university night programs.

Most of those private programs allow working adults with prior general education college credit to complete a business major, the most popular, in one to three years, attending two nights a week. Typical tuition prices for the private schools range from $6,000 to $12,000 a year.

Most of those private college offerings are known as “degree completion programs,” meaning students must do their lower division work elsewhere, such as at community colleges, then enroll in the private program for the necessary courses in their major field of study. However, some schools do offer complete start-to-finish night degree programs.

For well-to-do employees or those whose companies offer tuition reimbursement, the private schools can be an attractive option. But many adult students say companies have been toughening reimbursement policies, and that the tight economy of recent years has put a dent in family incomes and pushed tuition out of reach.

That shortage of night programs at public colleges hits hardest at adults who have already invested two years or more in night classes through junior colleges.

The California Community College system offers night and weekend programs to get working adults through their first two years. But when they are ready for the last two years, adults often cannot find a comparable public university program to finish their degree.

After finishing a community college program, “I would say the options for adult learners at Cal State are certainly decreased. And it gets even less once you get to the UC system,” said Rita Cepeda, a vice chancellor in the California Community Colleges system.

That is precisely the dilemma facing Chatsworth resident Steve Wilcox, a 33-year-old production control coordinator for a computer disk drive manufacturer. For the last two years, he has attended classes through a special night and weekend program for working adults at Pierce College in Woodland Hills.

Now looking to transfer to a university, Wilcox has found private school programs too expensive. “I’ve seen the per-unit costs and they’re staggering,” he said.

Yet his nearest Cal State campus, Northridge, does not offer a night business degree program for adults--although it is considering a pilot program next spring.

Generic night courses are common at Cal State and UC campuses. But according to working adults, what the campuses typically lack are dependable, preset schedules of courses that allow adults to plan their obligations, knowing they will be offered the classes they need over two or three years.

In the Cal State system, officials said that only the Dominguez Hills and Hayward campuses offer special night degree packages for adults through PACE--the Program for Adult College Education.

The UC system offers even fewer options. UC spokesman Terry Colvin said, “The University of California has a policy against part-time degree programs for undergraduates. And we don’t encourage undergraduates to work full-time.”

There is only one UC college with a night degree program--the UC Santa Barbara Ventura center, where transfer students can choose from eight majors that offer night and weekend courses. Tuition is about $2,550 a year.

When adult students are paying up to $3,000 per class in night programs at private universities--amounting to almost two full years of Cal State tuition--”that says the need isn’t being served by the state-supported institutions,” said David Heifetz, PACE director at Cal State Dominguez Hills.

Adults like Wilcox probably would be eligible for federal loans to pay the high cost of private university tuition. But Wilcox is reluctant to go deeper in debt because, apart from economic uncertainties, he’s already facing a 30-year payoff on nearly $19,000 he had to borrow after the Northridge earthquake.

As the wide range of private universities offering night degree programs demonstrates, there is a market among working adults who want to return to school.

“People think, ‘If they had been good students, they would have been like me and graduated when they were 21,’ ” said Heifetz of Cal State Dominguez Hills. “But it turns out that’s just absurd.”