Nontraditional Undergraduates: Susan Choy

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This is a 2002 study by Susan Choy that examines the growing number of nontraditional students in US higher education using the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study- 2000 (NPSAS:2000) to examine this population and its characteristics and the Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Studies- 1996/1998 (BPS:1996/1998) to compare persistence of traditional and nontraditional students. Choy describes a nontraditional student as one who delays enrollment by a year or more, or attends part time at least part of the year, or works full time while enrolled, or is considered financially independent when calculating financial aid, or has a non-spouse dependent, or is a single parent, or does not have a high school diploma. She further breaks down the categories of non-traditional students, those who meet only one of these descriptions are minimally non-traditional, those who meet two or three are moderately nontraditional, and those who meet four or more are highly nontraditional. One problem with this description is that many of them, especially being a single parent and having dependents other than a spouse, are not mutually exclusive and in some cases are contained within each other. Choy gives no justification for why this is justifiable.

The NPSAS:2000 found that 73% of undergraduates in 1999-2000 had at least one nontraditional characteristic; about 27% were traditional, 17% minimally nontraditional, 28% moderately nontraditional and 28% highly nontraditional. Traditional students tended to enroll in public and private not-for-profit 4-year schools, minimally nontraditional students tended to enroll in public 2-year and 4-year schools, and a majority of moderately and highly nontraditional students tended to enroll in public 2-year schools, and together made up a large portion of students at private for-profit institutions.

There was also a traditional-nontraditional split in hours worked and self-identification as student or employee. For traditional students, 30% did not work, 67% worked but considered themselves primarily students, and 3% considered themselves employees. For minimally nontraditional students, those figures were 19%, 71%, and 10%; for moderately nontraditional they were 20%, 43%, and 37%; and for highly nontraditional they were 11%, 22%, and 67%. And while students of all types who worked reported about the same number of benefits of working while studying, the more nontraditional students found the challenges of working while studying to be much greater. For nontraditional students who considered themselves employees first, the main motivations for going to school were gaining skills, earning a degree/certificate, and personal enrichment/investment, each cited in about 80% of the population. Only about 33% said required for job was a motivation.

For students int the (BPS:1996/1998), who enrolled from 1995-1996 with the goal of a certificate or degree, traditional students without a degree were more likely to be enrolled three years later than nontraditional students without a degree. For associates and bachelors degree, the
more nontraditional a student was, the more likely it was that they had dropped out. For traditional and nontraditional students alike, those whose goal was and associates degree were more likely to drop out with no degree after 3 years than those aiming for a bachelors. If they left school at any time for more than four months, both traditional and nontraditional students were equally likely to return to the same institution, but traditional students were more likely to transfer downwards while nontraditional students were more likely to drop out.