Understanding and Recruiting Adult Degree Completers

This report explores three key findings from a survey of 1,000+ prospective adult students and offers specific marketing, recruitment, and program design strategies to enroll and serve adult degree completers.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to destabilize the U.S. economy and reinvigorate concerns about meeting enrollment and revenue goals, enrollment leaders are facing renewed pressure to recruit adult learners. One specific population of interest is adult degree completers, or students 25 and older who have some college credit but do not yet have a bachelor’s degree.

Today, there are 3.5 million “potential degree completers” in the United States, or adults who have completed at least two years’ worth of academic credit but do not have a bachelor’s degree or certificate. But recruiting this audience comes with a host of challenges. From identifying prospective degree completers despite the lack of test-taker lists to implementing best-fit marketing strategies during students’ long, meandering journey to reenrollment, recruiting degree completers requires thoughtful marketing across the enrollment funnel.

Read the full report or explore our major findings below to learn about adult degree completers’ mindset, motivations, and concerns, their program and institutional preferences, and their research behavior and catalysts to enrollment.

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Opportunity inspires degree completers

In many ways, degree completers represent an ideal prospective student audience for enrollment leaders. They are a highly motivated group, for whom leaving school was a sacrifice, often made to focus on work or family. Respondents say that even considering returning to school to complete their degree is made possible by changes in their circumstances, personal growth, or a combination of the two. Across the board, survey respondents identify a college degree as an important step to securing new and better opportunities for themselves and their families. But there is significant variation in the kinds of opportunities degree completers seek.

Degree completers seek opportunity for themselves and their families
Q: What are your top motivations for wanting to finish your degree?

Fear often limits re-enrollment

From being given new job opportunities to inspiring their children, prospective degree completers are motivated to go back to school by a range of factors. But degree completers are also apprehensive about returning to school. On average, respondents spent 20 more seconds sharing their concerns in video interviews than they did discussing their motivations. Nearly half of respondents say they have much to figure out before they can reenroll, while 18% say they are “scared when they think about returning to school.”

More on Degree Completers’ Mindset

Degree completers seek a degree, not an educational experience

Although going back to school represents a significant personal milestone for many degree completers, respondents are highly practical throughout their journey to enrollment. Degree completers seek to complete their degree as quickly and inexpensively as possible. While degree completers value the community that can come with enrolling in an academic program, convenience trumps educational experience across the board.

Personal feasibility is more important than school ranking

Because degree completers seek flexible and lower-cost options when going back to school, respondents say they are most likely to enroll at an online-only institution or nearby regional community college. However, private institutions and other school types can expand their appeal to prospective degree completers by showcasing information that speaks to students’ desire for flexible and affordable programming, such as information about financial aid opportunities or multiple start dates.

More on Degree Completers’ Program Preferences

A slow journey to reenrollment

One of the greatest challenges facing enrollment leaders as they seek to recruit adult degree completers is prospective degree completers’ long and often meandering journey back to school. Twenty-three percent of survey respondents do not yet have a timeline for when they will go back to school. For enrollment leaders, degree completers’ slow journey back to school means marketing messages must strike a careful balance of driving urgency without alienating degree completers whose busy schedules and competing priorities may prohibit them from acting quickly.

It all starts with search engines

While family and friends often motivate respondents to pursue their degree, their influence on degree completers as they research programs is relatively minimal. Instead, adult degree completers rely primarily on search engines to learn more about going back to school. Respondents report searching for terms such as “online programs” or “colleges near me” to learn more. Paid search ads with messages tailored to degree completers’ motivations and priorities are therefore one of the best ways to capture interest from students perusing programs.

Respondents rely on search engines to learn more about reenrollment
Q: Which of these sources have you used in the past year to gather information about returning to school?

Moving beyond research and towards enrollment

While prospective degree completers can spend months or years passively gathering information about going back to school, they are often prompted to pursue information about completing their degree actively when a major life event frees up time or money. Respondents typically begin to take more deliberate action toward enrollment, such as request information from a specific program, following the birth of a child, when their children leave home, or in times of discontent at their jobs. Most respondents say changes in their circumstances led them to go back to school, rather than industry or global changes.

More on Degree Completers’ Enrollment Behavior

Implications for recruitment and program design

Our survey research, coupled with existing best practices and expertise, suggests four key recruitment takeaways to reach, engage, and recruit adult learners. We’ve also outlined three program design strategies that will help you optimize your academic programs to serve adult degree completers.

4 Recruitment Takeaways

3 Program Design Strategies