Nontraditional students face obstacles

Fitting in and feeling welcome can be tough at a big school, but it’s even more difficult if you’re over 30.

Kenda Post, 31, is a senior studying rehabilitation science at Pitt. She is among a group of undergraduates who are considered “nontraditional students.” Because she delayed going to college until later in life, Post is older than “traditional” students, or students who are between 18 and 22 years old.

A student is considered nontraditional if he or she is financially independent, supports a family or is a single parent, works full-time or attends school part-time or does not have a high school diploma.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, two-thirds of students in colleges in the United States are nontraditional, and such students have been the majority since the 1980s.

Representatives from the University were unable to provide statistics regarding the number of enrolled nontraditional students by the time of publication.

But for Post, it feels like the younger, traditional undergraduates are the majority at Pitt.

After spending her first two and a half years of college at Colgate University and the State University of New York-Fredonia, Post worked as a teaching assistant in New York state at various schools throughout her twenties. 

She then decided to move to Pittsburgh with a former boyfriend. She said her classmates often don’t realize she is older, but sometimes having more life experience than her classmates is frustrating.

 “Something that seems really basic to someone in my position gets explained to us like 14 times,” Post said, “like how to apply for a job, mock interviews and resumés.”

Attending class full-time, working evenings and weekends and commuting from Mt. Oliver, Pa., doesn’t leave Post much free time. She said her tight schedule can be an issue when professors expect students to attend events outside of class.

“Forty-five hours of volunteer work was a huge chunk of our grade [for a class],” she said about her Introduction to Social Work class last year. “I can’t stop going to my paid job to come volunteer. But it eventually worked out. I did talk to the professor, and he was very flexible on that.”

Geofry Lawton, 23, is in his third semester majoring in accounting and said he sometimes feels a little out of place among other undergraduates, even though he is not much older than they are.

“I’m married, I have a house. My priorities are different,” Lawton said. “It’s a little bit isolating sometimes to feel like everybody else has different priorities and to know that everybody else can go off and do all these fun things.”

Lawton got his associate’s degree from Beaver County Community College right after high school.

“I decided to come to Pitt just because I wasn’t having too much success in my career and I really wanted to get to a better place,” Lawton said. “Before, I had an associate’s degree, and I wasn’t really making good use of that.”

When he is not in class, Lawton works at a menswear store in the North Hills on weekends and evenings.

Lawton said it is nearly impossible for him to find a job that is “career relevant” while he attends Pitt.

In Lawton’s experience, most employers have required job applicants to have more than an associate’s degree for accounting work, so while he finishes his bachelor’s degree, most of the jobs he is qualified for have been unrelated to accounting.

Time constraints also present problems for students with children who may not be able to find affordable childcare, according to Mary Beth McCulloch, director of the University Child Development Center on Clyde Street. Though the center is available for use by undergraduate parents, McCulloch said graduate students with children use their services much more often.

“Whatever reason that you’re here or whatever reason that your child is here, our biggest job is to make sure that the children are safe and learning and growing so the parents can go on campus and do whatever they need to do,” McCulloch said.

The center is open to children of faculty, staff and students, and payment is based on the family’s total household income and the age of the child. According to McCulloch, a family could fall into six different payment categories, and subsidies are available to those at certain income levels.

Because the center is available to most members of the University community, the waiting list for enrollment is quite long, and often those who may be expecting a child will put their unborn or unconceived child on the waiting list so that he or she will have a spot waiting once born. The center is open to children 6 weeks old to 5 years old and 160 children are currently enrolled, McCulloch said.

No priority status is given to parents based on whether they are faculty, staff or students, except in the event of a family who wants to enroll a second child. McCulloch said siblings are the only ones given priority.

To help nontraditional students adjust, the University created the McCarl Center for Nontraditional Student Success in 2002, according to University spokesperson Anthony Moore. The McCarl Center is part of the College of General Studies, which offers a variety of paths to earn a bachelor’s degree, including on-campus learning, online learning or a combination of both.

“The center regularly hosts academic success programs, career development seminars and many social and networking activities,” Moore said. “Students also have access to free tutoring sessions.”

Like many other nontraditional students, Post’s hectic schedule can be stressful at times. After she graduates in May, she will enroll in Pitt’s graduate program for rehabilitation science.

Despite orinigally having moved to Pittsburgh with a now ex-boyfriend, Post said she’s happy she is here.

“Fifteen years later and I’m finally going to finish college,” Post said. “The relationship didn’t last, but at least something good came out of it.”