Working learners — the ‘Other 85 Percent’ of college students

Working Learners:  Educating Our Entire Workforce for Success in the 21st Century is a good read with an important message – and it addresses the needs of the other 85 percent.  Louis Soares of the Center for American Progress writes in this paper that working students, those who combine work and postsecondary education, “have little scheduling flexibility because of work and family obligations and thus pursue postsecondary credentials at a slower pace.”  He goes on to say that “most postsecondary institutions, however, ask working learners to get their education the same way that traditional students do.  Programs are typically available over 16-week semesters, with each course usually requiring multiple campus visits each week—very often during the day.”  

Soares uses the term working learners to describe those students who are already in the workforce and are “juggling work and learning.”  He notes that “75 percent of college undergraduates in the 1999-2000 school year were in some way nontraditional.”  He is talking about the other 85 percent of college students who did not come directly to full-time college study on a campus and remain dependent on their parents.  And, consistent with the points made in this blog, he notes that public policy shortchanges these students.  He states that “Pell Grant treats working learners, most of whom pursue postsecondary credentials as nontraditional students, less favorably than traditional students.”  He supports this viewpoint by pointing out that one of the characteristics that define the nontraditional student is being financially independent “for purposes of determining eligibility for financial aid.”  Noting that 60 percent of the 5 million low-income Americans who received a Pell Grant during the 2007-8 academic year were financially independent, he states that “the statutorily mandated federal needs analysis that determines the amount of federal aid puts far more burden on these older students than on their dependent peers.”  “A single, working learner Pell Grant recipient earning $30,000 or less can be required to pay at least 30 percent of their gross earning for postsecondary education.”  He goes on to point out how the Pell Grant program limits aid for students who attend college less than half-time, does not fund shorter-than-semester length courses, and “penalizes students for work.”  Soares concludes that “our financial aid structure today is inadequate to accommodate the different circumstances of working learners.”  He correctly states that working learners need the following:

•    Flexible financial assistance that promotes getting college credit over time
•    Access to 21st century-career coaching to design a successful work-education path
•    Accurate information about education and training quality
•    Educational institutions able to adapt their service delivery to working learners needs

Again, Soares’ paper is an important one, and I highly recommend giving it a read.  Not only because it aligns with the concerns expressed in this blog, but because he makes a compelling argument for the national significance of educating today’s workforce and the failure of our current systems to enable the necessary mix of learning and work.
I think that this paper further documents the serious public policy misunderstanding about what our country needs in regard to postsecondary education due to a reliance on a romantic view of what college-going is in today’s world.  And, it correctly points to some of the policies that not only don’t encourage the working learner, but place barriers in the way of their participation in postsecondary education.  While I am pleased to see a paper like this, I only wish I could claim optimism about whether positive change is coming.  Instead, I see messages out of our nation’s capital that there is concern about things like credit hours – seat time. At a time when we desperately need visionary leadership, we are seeing retrenchment and calls for greater controls. The fact is that federal financial aid, including the Pell Grant, is locked into old ways of thinking about education and is getting more and more locked into approaches that block rather than encourage either innovation or support for working learners.

Your thoughts? Please feel free to leave a comment.

Mike