Non-traditional College Students: Reputation Vs. Reality

Non-traditional college students have a reputation. Some elements of that reputation are good, others not so good. Knowing what your fellow students are expecting of you can help make the college experience more positive, so both traditional and non-traditional students should learn what elements of that reputation are real.

1. Reputation: non-traditional students don't have to work while attending college. Many times, younger students have to work part-time in order to cover their expenses, and they don't hear of older students needing to.

It is true that some non-traditional students have spouses who can foot the bills while they attend college or have made and saved enough money to pay their own way. But not all fit that description. Many have a part-time as well, and some are full-time workers trying to attend in their spare time to get a degree. And they are often able to make other sacrifices to get the needed money. For instance, parents often wait until their children have left home to return to college. A second car or a house might be sold. While these changes don't require the same time commitment a job does, they do certainly cause a change in lifestyle. Many households where an adult is attending college have financial insecurities that cause stress and take away from study time.

2. Reputation: non-traditional students monopolize class time. Older students are seen as the ones who always answer questions and often ask questions that draw the instructor off the topic. Many students attend class basically to find out what is going to be on the test, and they don't want to hear some unrelated anecdote from student or instructor.

It is true that non-traditional students are often the ones who answer questions. But many of them would rather not. When the instructor asks for student participation, the traditional students often sit and look at the non-traditionals, expecting they will respond. Older students already feel as if they stand out, so they are often wishing they could blend into the class a bit more by not feeling the need to address every question. However, they do have more life experience than other students (and sometimes more than the instructor), so they can often add interesting details or ask how some of their experiences relate. Non-traditional college students are usually there to learn, which is not true of all college students.

3. Reputation: non-traditional students ruin the curve. This is really the primary issue, the reputation point that the others come from. Non-traditional students get higher grades on exams as well as other assignments because they don't have anything else to do but work on the one class they are taking. Because they score so much better than the other students, they throw off the grading curve and other students suffer.

Certainly, some non-traditional college students take only one class at a time and don't have to worry about a job or family commitments. But these are pretty few. A second point is that if you have an instructor who is still using the antiquated and ridiculous practice of grading on a bell curve, you should get out of there as soon as possible. A third point is that it doesn't really matter. A bell curve is set up so a certain number of students get certain grades. That means that a certain number of the top scoring students will get As and a certain number of the lowest scoring students will get Fs, even if they achieved 95% on the exam. It doesn't matter how wide the spread from lowest to highest; only the placement in order from lowest to highest determines the grade. Instead of using a true curve, many college instructors today will add points to all students' scores or subtract the number of points possible for the exam, either way raising the percentage score all students achieve. While a high scoring non-traditional student may affect how much the instructor decides to change the scoring, it is rather unlikely. One score that is far away from the rest is an anomaly and isn't usually included in such decisions.

So while non-traditional college students do deserve some of their reputation, the bad blood between groups of students based on age is unfounded. Some of those traditional college students will become the non-traditionals in the future. Each can learn from the other. And learning is supposed to be what college is all about.