Why Adults over the Age of Thirty Return to School

Published 06 Mar 2017

Just when it is time for them to sit back, relax and enjoy life and child rearing, a growing number of people are deciding to go back to school. There are a number of reasons for people to make this choice and as many effects created by these decisions. Some of the reasons for adults to go back to school include the increased availability and flexibility of colleges, boredom or desire for a challenge, jobs require employees to get a higher level of education, and to have more career opportunities. The effects of these decisions on the students include the stress of changing careers, decreased free time due to studying, family pressures, anxiety over possible failure.

As online colleges and community colleges make schedules more readily available to people who work full time day jobs, more people are able to find the time to seek the degree they may have always wanted. Often when people are directly out of high school, life circumstances require them to enter the workforce immediately (essortment).Some people, especially women who have stayed home to raise children find a need to have more of a challenge in life. This is especially true when those children go to school. These women then discover that what they had spent much of their time doing is no longer the same and in order to be successful in the workforce a college degree would be helpful.As required skills for jobs are always changing, people who have been on a job for a long time often find the need to return to get a new degree or education on new advancements in technology for their current job.

Other people simply find after a number of years in one career or at one job, that it is unfulfilling and need a change. At this time many people seek out the online colleges, because they are very flexible and offer accelerated learning.One effect of returning to college is the stress of changing careers after years of learning and perfecting one skill. This can be confusing and frustrating at first, but most people adapt quickly. Most people eventually find they enjoy the challenge of something new.

Some people find that the decreased amount of free time is a problem. When a great deal of time must be spent studying and completing assignments, less time is left for enjoyable activities (Hoak). Most people, who are determined to succeed, find a way to balance this time once they adjust to the new workload.People with families, especially those with young children have difficulty balancing family time. Children demand a great deal of their parent’s time. When one of the parents needs to spend most evenings studying, the children are not able to understand. This can be dealt with by spending quality time with children and concentrating less on the quantity of time.

Some people are nervous about failing, because they have been out of school for some time. They feel they may have forgotten too much to be successful. After adapting to the classes and the time commitment, many people realize they have retained more than they thought.It can be a very rewarding experience for people to return to school. If they had to give up on a dream to seek income, once financial security has been satisfied it is a perfect time to go back to seek the dream job. For those who have spent years doing something they hated and were afraid to take a risk of changing, it can be the most rewarding thing they could imagine.

Works Cited:

  • “Adults Going Back to College”. (2002). Essortment, 30 January, 2008
  • Hoak, Amy. “Adults in Session”. 23 July, 2007. 30 January, 2008
  • How adults heading back to school can balance life, work, family – MarketWatch
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