<p>I recently looked through some data gathered by the Education Trust and was surprised at the high numbers of older students at a few of the top national universities. Does anybody know what is driving this? The data is below. </p>
<p>% of students age 25+ , College</p>
<p>14% , Johns Hopkins
14% , Columbia
13% , Wash U
10% , Northwestern
9% , U Penn
7% , UCLA
7% , UC Berkeley
5% , USC
5% , U North Carolina
5% , U Virginia
4% , Georgetown
3% , Harvard
3% , Emory
3% , Carnegie Mellon
2% , Brown
2% , U Michigan
1% , Yale
1% , Caltech
1% , Stanford
1% , MIT
1% , Duke
1% , Cornell
1% , Tufts
0% , Wake Forest
0% , U Chicago
0% , Vanderbilt
0% , Dartmouth
0% , Princeton
0% , Rice
0% , Notre Dame</p>
<p>a few schools like Columbia and Northwestern have a school of continuing studies which is meant for nontraditional students who are usually older. Some of these programs might appeal to people in cities, or some programs might be better than others, and some colleges might not even have such a program. I think all of these might be factors</p>
<p>For UC Berkeley, UCLA, and USC, these schools accept a significant number of transfer students from community colleges…some of these students have started their educational careers later than customary for various reasons.</p>
<p>For the others, perhaps they attract a higher proportion of transfer students as well. Or, the older student is attracted more to pre-professional programs offered at these universities.</p>
<p>Hopkins also offers a Liberal Art curriculum targeted towards “adults,” as well as an undergrad biz program “designed as a transfer program for working adults” (so classes are offered at night).</p>