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Our understanding of college students is shifting as demographic changes become clearer. For example, nearly of the college student population consisted of adults ages 25 and up in the fall of 2021. In total, 6.4 million of these students enrolled in more than 5,800 degree-granting schools in the United States.

Adult students typically seek education to either boost their prospects in their current career or retrain for a different line of work. Many of them support themselves financially and have families and other responsibilities, so they typically look for different features from a college program than students who are fresh out of high school. The question is, what types of schools meet these needs? 

This article updates our 2022 research about adult learners in undergraduate and graduate programs. The current data references undergraduate students ages 25 and up. This time, we calculated which colleges served the most adult undergraduate learners in the 2022-2023 school year based on the latest comprehensive enrollment data available from the U.S. Department of Education. We then compared the most recent data to the previous five years in order to find out what’s changed. 

Read on to learn what we discovered.

Colleges With the Most Adult Learners

In the following table, we list the 25 colleges with the highest number of adult undergraduate students:

Insights About Schools With the Most Adult Students

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Many schools on this list deliver online learning to at least 75% of their students. Among the first five colleges, one is exclusively online (Western Governors University), while the other four enroll many more online students than campus-based students. 

Adult learners usually make up the majority of the student population at online schools, as we noted in our 2022 version of this report. Online colleges are popular options for adults who may have full-time jobs, families, and other responsibilities that make it hard to attend class during the day on campus. 

Employment data shows that online programs are highly popular for healthcare majors. Military students also commonly enroll in distance learning because they’re not forced to transfer to a new school if they’re redeployed away from a campus.

Online schools market to adult learners by advertising their flexibility and convenience and have filled a gap in higher ed for these students over the last few decades. However, many online schools have faced legal challenges for predatory recruitment practices and are characterized by a history of poor student outcomes. The wide variety of online programs available today means there are more high-quality options than ever before, so it pays to do thorough research before committing to a program.

Community Colleges

Community colleges are a mainstay in adult education. Like online schools, they often meet the needs of students 25 years old and older. Many working adults are looking for shorter programs and targeted career training at a lower price point. They might find this sweet spot in professional certificates or affordable associate degrees at community colleges. 

Taken together, the top five community colleges on our list enroll nearly 80,000 students over the age of 25:

1. Ivy Tech Community College (New Castle, IN)
2. Lone Star College System (greater Houston, TX)
3. East Los Angeles College (Los Angeles, CA)
4. American River College (Sacramento, CA)
5. Dallas College (Dallas, TX)

Two-year institutions tend to focus on the educational needs of their local community. Most community college students live close to the school they attend because two-year colleges typically charge the lowest tuition rates to local enrollees. But more large schools are and may draw students from further afield, a trend that the COVID-19 pandemic sped up considerably.

Still, community colleges tend to have lower percentages of adult learners than many four-year online schools. The largest student contingents at these schools are often recent high school graduates studying for a career certificate or an associate degree with transferable credits.

Public Universities

It’s no surprise that private institutions form the majority of the four-year schools on this list, but there are some notable public universities with hefty percentages of adult enrollees:

• The University of Maryland Global Campus: 71%
• Arizona State University Digital Immersion: 60%
• Purdue Global: 77%
• The University of Texas at Arlington: 32%

The first three of these schools reflect a fairly new phenomenon: established public institutions developing a separate online branch. This practice fuses the name recognition of the flagship school with the popularity of online education. 

Five-Year Trends in Adult Learning

Our 2022 analysis of adult students used data from the fall 2019 school year, but we’re now able to compare numbers from the 2018-2019 school year through 2022-2023. We detail a few of our findings below.

Consistency in Percentages

One surprising revelation was just how consistent the percentages of adult students have remained at individual schools. Among the top 25 schools for total adult learners, most had increases or decreases of only a few percentage points between fall 2018 and fall 2022. 

There were some exceptions, mainly toward the end of the list. For example, Northern Virginia Community College enrolled 8% fewer adult students in 2022 than it did in 2018. And the University of Texas at Arlington had the biggest percentage drop — of 13% — in that five-year period.

Notable Changes in Total Enrollment

Several of our top schools increased their total number of adult enrollees, even while the percentage of adults stayed the same compared to other types of students. For example, Southern New Hampshire University has consistently increased its enrollment of adult learners annually — anywhere from 7,000 to 13,000 students — from 2018 to 2022. Purdue Global had the most dramatic jump in students ages 25 and up, from 996 in 2018 to 25,668 in 2022.

However, most of the community colleges on the list experienced declines in the total enrollment of adult students. This tended to happen gradually and steadily, making it hard to pin down a reason.

Bottom Line

Adult learners often have different circumstances from recent high school graduates. Many of them are full-time workers and primary caregivers for children or parents. The traditional norms and processes in higher education may exclude adults with these responsibilities, leading them to question whether college is feasible.

A few simple accommodations can help remove barriers and make higher education more accessible for college students who aren’t recent high school graduates. These policies include rolling admissions, degree programs for specific careers, evening or asynchronous online classes, part-time options, flexible credit transfer policies, credits for prior learning or experience, and childcare.

Online colleges often feature many of these accommodations and promote them prominently in marketing campaigns. Adult applicants seem to be convinced, and their interest in online college education shows no signs of declining anytime soon.

Methodology

We gathered data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) for each school year from 2018-2019 to 2022-2023. The relevant data we pulled includes the following: 

• Enrollment numbers for undergraduate students in the 18-24 and 25-64 age ranges.
• The availability of online undergraduate degree programs at a college.
• Whether a school offers exclusively online learning.