4 Ways to Alleviate Adult Student Fears About Returning to School
For some prospective adult students, a major barrier to returning to school for a bachelor’s degree is the fear that they will not be successful. Since they have been away from school for a long time or have many other things going on in their lives, this is a valid fear. No one wants to make the considerable investment of time and money to earn their bachelor’s only to not be successful in actually earning the degree.
This is why it’s important to make sure you are offering ways to alleviate prospective adult students’ fears and concerns. With this in mind, we’ve highlighted four ways to do just that.
Offer free one-on-one consultations. It can be helpful for prospective adult students to speak with an advisor to get a sense of whether returning to school at this time is a good fit for their lives. You can offer this service by providing a free phone or in-person consultation. This consultative approach enables you to ask about their previous college and/or community college experience, academic performance, and what their life looks like when it comes to work and family. It also gives them a space to verbalize their fears, and you can address whether or not these concerns are reasonable or exaggerated.
Consultations also mean, though, that you must be honest with certain students about whether or not returning to school at this point in time is a good fit. The truth is that some fears might be legitimate. For example, you may need to tell certain prospective adult students that they would benefit from taking more community college courses or waiting until they have more time in their lives before returning to school. Some students may need more classes to shore up their fundamental skills, or they may be overworked and/or too busy with their families to realistically enroll in your program right now.
The key is to provide reasonable and encouraging advice, so that adult students don’t let any exaggerated fears keep them from enrolling.
Offer free skills workshops and classes. Another great way to help ease adult prospective students’ fears is by offering free workshops or courses to help them prepare for school. How about a free college readiness course, one that includes tips on how to take good notes, develop study habits, craft college-level essays, manage relationships with peers on projects, and so on? This is a great way to help prospective students become more prepared, giving them the confidence they need to return to school. It also “previews” what the classroom setting would be like should they attend your school.
You’ll want to make sure you have the resources to offer a free course or workshop, since it will need to be high quality and actually serve their needs. Further, you’ll need to develop a marketing campaign to acquire attendees and continue to push them along the buyer journey after they complete a course or workshop.
Connect prospective adult students with current students and/or recent alumni. While it can be very helpful for a counselor or faculty member to speak directly with prospective adult students to ease their fears, it can be even better to connect them to someone who is or was recently in their shoes.
If you have a prospective student who is worried about finding time to get homework done because of their full-time job and teenage kids, then consider connecting them to a current student in a similar situation. Or, if you have a prospective student who has been away from school for three decades, consider connecting them to a recent alum who returned to school after many years away.
The match doesn't have to be perfect, but by giving prospective adult students a chance to speak with someone who “gets them,” you can help them more concretely imagine themselves as a student at your school. These connections also help them learn about specific details of your program—like how many hours a week they can expect to devote to homework, how to balance family life with studying, and how accommodating the professor are.
Communicate regularly with prospective adult students. Make sure to establish regular lines of communication (emails, phone calls, etc.) that relay valuable content and information: current student testimonials, faculty quotes, alumni success stories, and other compelling features about your programs. Make sure to also include calls to action encouraging them to engage the offerings mentioned above: speaking to a counselor, taking a free skills readiness workshop, and connecting them with a current student or recent alum. The more you can stay in touch with them, the more familiar the idea of going back to school will become to them.
The goal, of course, isn’t to be a nuisance. Rather, it’s to maintain consistent communication with them so that when or if they are finally ready to take that next step they have your school top-of-mind. Because you have been regularly reaching out to them, easing their fears and encouraging them, they’re more likely to feel connected. Ultimately, going back to school is not a small decision—especially for someone who has been away from school for some time or has a lot going professionally and in personal life—and so it’s understandable that some prospective adult students will have fears.
By establishing and maintaining regular, friendly, and helpful lines of communication, you can encourage prospective adult students to make a decision that is not based on irrational or exaggerated fears, but on what’s truly best for them.
