The Diversity of Emerging Adult Learners and Their Successful Persistence Toward Graduation

Abstract

Emerging adult learners returning to higher education must balance family, friends, work, community members, and many other responsibilities when they return to school. As higher education institutions struggle to increase enrollments, they can no longer ignore the critical population of students who now understand how returning or beginning college later in life will allow them to fulfill lifelong dreams, give back to their communities, and increase their economic mobility. Higher education institutions must welcome these students by creating a sense of belonging and valuing the contributions of their lived experiences, helping them leverage this experience by assessing their needs and providing services, flexibility, and a welcoming environment to thrive. Using a new asset-based acronym for emerging adult learners (EALs) to replace the former, deficit-based nomenclature, this narrative inquiry study explored the transition of these students, those factors that helped them to persist successfully toward graduation, and the asset-based frameworks and literature that can contribute to their success in the academy.