Postsecondary administrators interested in serving parenting adult learners (PALs) need to know more about them and the supports they need in their pursuit and completion of postsecondary credentials. This project leverages data from an AIR survey of adult learners and one-on-one interviews with a subset of parenting adult learners to answer three key questions: 1) What factors contribute to PALs’ decisions to enroll in college? 2) What do the academic experiences of PALs look like? and 3) What supports and resources do PALs use and want? Building on a broad research base on the experiences of parenting students, results from this research shed light on the particular experiences of adult learners with children and point to ways practitioners and policymakers can better align programs and resources to this student population.
This report used data from a recent survey of adult learners and one-on-one interview with a subset of parenting and adult learners to learn more about this population of students and the supports they need in their pursuit and completion of postsecondary credentials. 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.
