Parenting Adult Learners' Experiences in Higher Education

Pursuing postsecondary education is complicated for adult learners with children, also known as parenting adult learners (PALs). PALs must consider family expenses in addition to college expenses and make tough decisions about how to spend their time across their academic, work, and family responsibilities. Nonetheless, PALs are highly motivated, are resilient, and feel that earning a credential will improve the economic outlook for their family. This project leverages new data from AIR's recent survey of adult learners and one-on-one interviews with a subset of PALs. Building on a broad research base on the experiences of parenting adult learners, results from this research point to three ways practitioners and policymakers can better align programs and resources to this student population: (1) consider practices that encourage a family-friendly environment; (2) tailor outreach to parenting adult learners; and (3) collect and examine data on parenting students. [This report was produced by the Center for Applied Research in Postsecondary Education (CARPE).]