Tomorrow's collegiates: adult students
NEW ENGLAND'S public universities and colleges would do well to take a closer look within their own states to recruit college students from among their adult populations. Helping colleges keep their budgets in the black is one thing to which out-of-state recruitment may be a sensible solution. But since these institutions' mission is to contribute to their states' economic and civic health they should not overlook adults as potential college students. Adults can help not only reverse the trend of declining enrollments across New England, they are more likely to remain and to contribute to a state's economy. Adult learners who continue their education through to a baccalaureate are particularly strong economic drivers for the community.
Every New England state is looking to improve the education levels of its workforce, and all owe any population growth to immigrants who have made this region their new home. No state is graduating enough high school students to replace retiring workers, and all must rely on educating adults for challenging new careers. Yet, most states are not making serious investments in preparing adults for postsecondary education. New England, like the rest of the country, invests less than one half of 1 percent of its public education dollars in Adult Basic Education, GED, or English for Speakers of Other Languages classes. This is in spite of research that tells us that the strongest predictor of the educational attainment of children is the level of education of their parents.
While there has been much focus on the need to better prepare high school students for college, we must also prepare adults coming out of Adult Diploma or GED programs for the rigors of college. An aspect of that change does not require additional expenditures. It requires adult educators to raise the expectations they have of their students so that adult learners stop viewing the GED or high school diploma as a terminal degree and set their sights higher on higher education. However, without additional funding, those higher expectations will not translate into college degrees. Only 5 to 10 percent of GED recipients make it through one year of postsecondary education, and about 1 percent obtain an associate's degree.
Recent studies indicate that low-income adult students identify four major barriers to success in transition to college: financial need; lack of adequate academic preparation; the stress of juggling work, school, and family life; and an inability to navigate the unfamiliar, complex college environment. Despite the fact that the majority of college students fall into the ''nontraditional" category, college financial aid and services are modeled on traditional students, young people who attend full time and live in dorms.
The cost of college is not only tuition, fees, and books, but also income lost when a student needs to work less to be successful in school. This is particularly an issue for low-income adults. Financing college needs to be addressed through flexible financial aid policies. Most scholarship funds and financial aid are designed for full-time students, leaving adults taking one course at a time with loans, at best.
In 2000, the New England ABE-to-College Transition Project was launched to help equip adults with the academic, computer, and college success skills they need to enter and succeed in college. To date, 2,352 adults have participated; 1,737 (67 percent) have completed it and 1,382 (80 percent of completers) have entered postsecondary education. This is nearly double the national college matriculation rate for GED recipients.
In 2004, drawing on the experience gained in the New England project, World Education launched the National College Transition Network to respond to the growing interest to better prepare adult learners for college. At a national level, this interest has not been matched with more dollars to support direct services by adult education programs. New England states are trying to better align Adult Basic Education with postsecondary education. Massachusetts and Connecticut have invested in college transition programs for adults, and Maine is about to follow suit, depending on the outcome of legislation filed by the Maine Higher Education Compact.
As Kevin Sullivan, lieutenant governor of Connecticut, writes in the winter 2006 issue of Connections, ''Brainpower is New England's only renewable natural energy source." It is time for the policymakers and postsecondary educators in New England to develop this brainpower across the age spectrum.
Silja Kallenbach is director of the New England Literacy Resource Center/World Education. Cynthia Zafft is coordinator of the National College Transition Network. 
