Class Act: Why More Adults Are Hitting Books

Peggy O’Connor had more than a case of the jitters when she started college last January.

“I was sick to my stomach for almost two weeks,” she says. “I thought, ‘How can I do this? They’re all younger than me. They’re all smarter than me. I’m not going to fit in.”’

Now, the 42-year-old mom who is majoring in social work says the only concession to her age is that she’s always assigned the part of the mother or grandmother when “role playing” in her bioethics class.

Nancy Troester can relate. She’s not assigned the role of mother in college. She is a mother--of six. In fact, her oldest daughter will graduate college a semester ahead of her. Troester sheepishly admits her daughter’s grades are a shade better too. Nancy has a 3.72 GPA; her 20-year-old offspring has a 3.8.

Gail Opsahl doesn’t have children, but she did feel a little odd telling her friends--and boss--why she wouldn’t be available as often. She has to study.

These three women, who are studying everything from art to accounting, are part of the biggest trend to hit higher education since rising tuition. They’re adults, who for a variety of personal, professional and economic reasons, have decided to go back to college.

In 1993, the most recent year for which government statistics are available, 6.3 million adults over the age of 25 were attending college. Adults, considered “non-traditional” students, now make up 44% of the college population nationwide--and two out of three adults returning to college are women, education experts say. By way of comparison, adults composed 27.8% of the college population in 1970 and 37.8% in 1980. If current trends continue, adults will outnumber traditional students--those ranging in age between 17 and 23--by the end of the decade.

The reasons adults give for going back to school are as varied as their fingerprints. But students and experts alike acknowledge that a good part of the explanation is economic.

“I see more people understanding that if they don’t go to college, they’re not going to make as much money,” says Gary Redenbacher, an Apple Valley attorney who helps administer a scholarship program for adult students founded by his grandfather, popcorn magnate Orville Redenbacher. “The prestige in professions where you don’t go to college is just not there anymore.”

The average college graduate earns roughly $1 million more over a lifetime than the average high school graduate, according the Census Bureau. And many seasoned high school graduates have real-life experiences that make those statistics real.

Years ago, when O’Connor divorced and found herself supporting two young children, for example, her job opportunities were few and low-paying, mainly because she didn’t have a college degree, she says. When she did get a job, she watched as less qualified people were promoted around her--all for a lack of sheepskin.

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Rapid technological change is also driving the back-to-school trend, says Estela Mara Bensimon, professor for the Center for Higher Education Policy Analysis at USC.

“The workplace is no longer an assembly line,” she says. “As much as 80% of the jobs in the future are going to demand high skills in conceptual and technological areas. Unless you get a higher education, you are going to see yourself falling farther behind because the gulf between the educated and non-educated is getting much wider.”

Ken Goldfarb, a spokesman for the 64-campus State University of New York system, agrees: “As the economy has changed, people have determined that in order to stay marketable, they need to get additional--or different--education,” he says.

Still, many experts acknowledge that adults face unique difficulties when going back to college simply because they have far more financial and physical responsibilities than 18-year-olds who are sent to college with a car and a monthly allowance.

By and large, these are people with children, mortgages, car payments and credit cards, who find themselves forced to cut back or give up paying jobs in order to get their schooling. That requires a lot of planning and sacrifice.

Opsahl, for example, says she scaled back to part-time work to fit in classes. “It was a pretty big deal financially,” she says. “Our lifestyle had to change. We cut our grocery bill down to two-thirds. We don’t go out to eat. There are little or no entertainment expenses any longer and I make do with the wardrobe that I have. The income we have goes to paying for basics --food, utilities, the mortgage.” The frills are gone.

Troester, who owns a family farm, has relied on financial aid and academic scholarships to make it through.

“When you are farming and have six children, you’re scrimping all the time,” she says. “If it weren’t for financial aid and scholarships, there’s no way I could afford this.”

For O’Connor, the answer was student loans. “I’m borrowing just like an 18-year-old,” she says. “And, clearly, we’ve had to cut back. But I look at my degree like it’s a retirement fund. I know that I am probably going to be working for the rest of my life, but as long as I’m doing something I really like to do, that’s fulfilling.”

Kathy M. Kristof welcomes your comments and suggestions for columns but regrets that she cannot respond individually to letters and phone calls. Write to Personal Finance, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053, or message kristof@news.latimes.com on the Internet.