Further Time to Further Education
It is taking longer for some students to complete degree programs. The average time frame to complete an associate’s degree is two years and four years for a bachelor’s degree. There are various causes for the extended amount of time for students to reach the finishing point of their selected program. “… increases in nontraditional student[s] … comes an increasing percentage of working nontraditional college students with a multitude of commitments that serve to create barriers to educational success …” (Wyatt). Among the many reasons, the overall redirections of priorities serve as the base of cause as older students enter the world of academia. Family, careers, and financial means available are a few of the stimuli that readdress priorities of the modern day, nontraditional student.
The single most important entity in an individual’s existence is family. As a provider, one's family stands dependent on them. Not just to provide financial stability, but to also provide emotional stability. A wife needs her husband and a child needs their father and vice versa. Every day, sacrifices are made for the benefit and welfare of family. College is not exempt from movement to the back burner. Cutting semester hours is often seen as the antidote for relieving the stress at home, in order to maintain both school-life and family-life. Being responsible for a family leaves little time and energy to pursue higher education on a schedule relative to that of a traditional student.
Professional life is an enormous consumer of time. Daily and weekly a great majority of time is spent career centric. Less time is available to those who at present are engaged in a career. Pursuing a college degree, while simultaneously maintaining a career, can lengthen the amount of time required for completing a degree.
“Today's grad student typically starts an advanced-degree program long after the traditional undergraduate-to-graduate student has...