July 26, 2005 9:51 AM

The aging college student
Posted by Douglas Eisenhartat 9:51 AM

In a few weeks, travelers will begin to see a familiar pre-Labor Day sight on the nation's highways: vehicles crammed to the gills and rooftops with what can only be described as "stuff," translucent decals on the back window, as the nation's college students wend their way back to campus.

But here's some surprising news. Those so-called typical college students are actually now in the minority as institutions of higher learning are discovering that a different, more mature population is interested in their product:

Broadly defined as financially independent, working adults, nontraditional students age 25 and up now make up 38 percent of postsecondary enrollment, compared with 28 percent in 1970, according to US Department of Education estimates. On many campuses, they have become the majority. Only about a quarter of the nation's 14.9 million undergraduates fit the ''traditional" mold of enrolling right out of high school, attending full time, and relying on their parents' purse strings.

Learning and earning have always been connected, but now the motivation to obtain higher-level schooling is becoming even more apparent among the older set. It also bespeaks the trend toward the loosening of the traditional school-career-retirement lockstep that defined us for so long.

Many implications to explore. At the least, the notion of having more options at different points in one's life is both liberating and challenging.