This Podlet has been archived and is no longer updated. For recent information on VET-related topics, access the current Pod Network or search VOCEDplus. Last updated: December 2018.
There is no one clear definition for non-traditional students; however, this is a term often connected with tertiary education students who have taken an educational route that may be considered outside of a more established path. This can include elements such as: delayed enrolment, part-time enrolment, financial independence, working whilst studying, being a parent, being considered mature age, first generation entrants into higher education, or accessing tertiary education without having completed secondary schooling.
Research
Access items in VOCEDplus
- Demographics
- Disadvantaged
- Employment
- Enrolment
- Equity
- Higher education
- Outcomes
- Pathways
- Teaching and learning
- Vocational education and training
Recent publications
- Alternative credentials: prior learning 2.0 [US]
- Experiences of bridging program students at a regional satellite campus [Australia]
- From further to higher education: transition as an on-going process [UK]
- Higher vocational education and social mobility: educational participation in Australia and England
- Making 'good' choices: the impact of entitlement models on up-skilling later in life [Australia]
- Mixed messages: public communication about higher education and non-traditional students in Australia
- Motivations for participation in higher education: narratives of non-traditional students at Makerere University in Uganda
- Pathways fostering mobility to higher education for vulnerable immigrants in France, Switzerland and Canada
- Predictors of first year retention rates at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica
- (Re)defining the narrative: high-achieving nontraditional Black male undergraduates at a historically Black college and university [US]
- The juxtaposition of STEPS to the undergraduate arena: the lived experience of transitioning into undergraduate study [Australia]
- The work-study interface: similarities and differences between ethnic minority and ethnic majority students [Netherlands]
- Towards a conceptual framework for developing capabilities of 'new' types of students participating in higher education in sub-Saharan Africa
- Using the assessment process to overcome Imposter Syndrome in mature students [UK]
- 'We aren't heroes, we're survivors': higher education as an opportunity for students with disabilities to reinvent an identity [Spain]
Suggested reading
Key research from a broad date range
- Bolstering non-traditional student success: a comprehensive student aid system using financial aid, public benefits, and refundable tax credits [US]
- Higher education courses in the community: issues around guidance and learning support for non-traditional students
- Is there a best fit?: assessing alternative entrance pathways into an undergraduate degree for non-traditional students at York University [Canada]
- Mature entrants' transitions to postgraduate taught study [UK]
- Nontraditional students and community colleges: the conflict of justice and neoliberalism [US]
- Non-traditional students in Irish higher education: a research report
- Non-traditional students making their way in higher education: an Australian case study
- Redefining nontraditional students: exploring the self-perceptions of community college students [US]
