Introduction

All educational pursuits are a journey, and students start their journeys with the belief that they will complete a degree and graduate. But as we know, this journey for many is interrupted. Over the last 20 years more than 37 million students have left college without receiving a degree. Finishing a college degree would greatly improve these former students’ economic prospects. Unfortunately, adult students are often treated as an afterthought by colleges and policymakers. But here is a reality check: According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, over 40 percent of current college students are over the age of 25, almost 30 percent have children, and over 60 percent work at least part time.

The new majority of college students now have adult responsibilities, such as parenting, earning a living, and paying for college. The challenge and opportunity for postsecondary institutions is to design systems that support success for this new majority. Furthermore, serving adult students well by design shows postsecondary institutions how to better serve all students.

Drawing on the Graduate! Network’s 15 years of working with this population of students, we honor these determined individuals who are intent on completing their degrees, by designating them comebackers. The Graduate! Network coined the term to underscore their potential and their tenacity this time around. However, addressing returning comebackers’ needs can be challenging when colleges, states, and researchers only have limited information about what these adults need to re-enter college and be successful. This report is presented using their journey as our framework—one of getting back on track, persevering, and earning their degree, as it provides new information for colleges, employers, governments, and organizations seeking to improve postsecondary outcomes.

As researchers and social change leaders, we are focused on less visible populations in the postsecondary ecosystem. Adults with some college credit but not a degree who want to return to finish a credential have been long overlooked as a population that can contribute to the social and economic well-being of regions and communities. Written off as “failures” for decades and defined by deficit, these adults strike us as having been dealt a triple blow. First, the sheer number of non-completers indicated to us that there is a systemic failure in the learning and achievement continuum from high school to and through college. Second, despite the numbers indicating systemic failures, this population has long been branded with the stigma of personal failure. Third and most recently, they are now the “it” population for ed-techs and higher education institutions facing a “cliff” of freshly minted high school graduates, and often sought out for profit reasons and to fill seats without provisions for actual completion of their goals.

Our goal is to understand how to successfully bring comebackers back to complete their degrees, mitigating challenges created by past postsecondary attempts, and respecting the complexity of their lives. We view comebackers as individuals and a population with a multitude of talents and gifts to offer themselves, their families, their communities, colleges, employers, and the world.

Our investigation started with three questions:

• How do comebackers’ attitudes, aspirations, and perceived strengths influence their re-enrollment, persistence, and completion?
• What is the definition of persistence in the context of adults going back to and through college?
• What is predictive of re-enrollment and non-re-enrollment? What is predictive of graduation and non-completion?

Our research consisted of analysis of quantitative and qualitative data produced by and collected from Graduate! Network communities that use a common database dubbed the Comeback Tracker. Our study set is unique in the postsecondary attainment ecosystem in that it provides a longitudinal view of student progress across institutions. On the quantitative side, we analyzed administrative data and enrollment records from the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) for more than 7,800 comebackers, and also ran our data through a predictive model. On the qualitative side, we surveyed 325 comebackers, and completed focus groups of comebackers in three Graduate! Network communities and one-on-one interviews with 15 others in five Graduate! Network communities. Taken together, our research not only sheds light on factors associated with academic progress, but also incorporates social and emotional insights along with the voices of the adult students. See the Research Overview section for more details on our data sources and methodology.

Here are the main findings of our research:

1. Of comebackers who got back on track and then graduated, 69 percent stayed continuously enrolled until they finished.
2. Starts and stops were not unusual for comebackers who graduated. One in five had one or more stop-outs in route to graduation. In talking to comebackers, we learned that for many, a stop-out or even multiple stops were not a sign of giving up, but rather a period of enrollment dormancy during which they were laying the groundwork or waiting for a more opportune time to resume their education.
3. The concept of persistence as traditionally defined is not useful in describing comebackers. Even tinkering with the parameters of the definition seems arbitrary: When do we declare a student not persisting—after an absence of one semester? An academic year? Two years? What about students who pick up again after a decade? What if the comebacker switches majors or institutions? The concept of perseverance is more useful in this context.
4. For one in 10 comebackers who graduated, the barrier they faced was an administrative one. Clearing bureaucratic tangles like filing a graduation application or paying off a balance due to the school was often all it took for these students to be awarded a degree. In other instances, transfer credit and/or credit through prior learning assessment allowed colleges to grant a degree upon a student’s re-enrollment. In still other circumstances, community colleges awarded a two-year degree based on classes completed at a four-year college (i.e., reverse transfer). In a very real sense, these comebackers had already made it to the finish line but were being prevented from crossing.
5. Taking a closer look at potential completers, a subset of comebackers who had stopped out with two years or more of academic progress, close to two-thirds (61 percent) had earned almost four years’ worth of credit but no degree had been conferred. In this situation, comebackers were thought to be “swirling” between programs and institutions, with no firm game plan to make it to the finish line.
6. The motivation for returning to school tended to be intrinsic and deeply personal. The top reason for finishing school was personal goal; other reasons cited were being a role model to family and personal satisfaction. Personal reasons held as the prime motivation across all income brackets.
7. Supportive school faculty and staff—even more than family members, mentors, and advisors—was the top factor that helped comebackers persevere and get through school, cited by 88 percent of survey respondents.

The research for this report was completed by February 2020, just as the first wave of coronavirus infections reached the United States. The analysis and findings in this report do not, therefore, reflect changes in the status, condition, views, attitudes, or aspirations of comebackers brought about by widespread closures (including colleges and universities), job losses, and health impacts stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.

But just as the pandemic is shining a light on health disparities between subgroups of the U.S. population, so too are we starting to see small negative effects on comebackers who are considering returning to school or are on track to finish a degree. Early program data indicate that fewer comebackers than anticipated for this time of year are enrolling for the first time after engaging with a Graduate! Network program, particularly comebackers who report family annual incomes of less than $24,000. Similarly, more comebackers than expected who were matriculating at the start of the pandemic had to stop out during the term, notably true for Black, Latinx, Asian, and other non-white categories of race and ethnicity. It is likely that both these trends are due to changes in health, employment status, and financial standing for comebackers brought about by recent events.

Tremendous uncertainty remains around when the pandemic can be brought under control and when the economy will recover. This uncertainty extends to colleges and universities themselves, which are suffering from cratered revenues due to locked down campuses and a sudden and massive shift to virtual instruction. Our report shines a light on the inequities comebackers face in their journey to complete a degree, and these inequities will no doubt be exacerbated as long as this uncertainty remains. But the existential crises colleges and universities are facing now are also an opportunity for looking at comebackers in a new light. It is in this spirit that we offer this research.