Who is today’s college student?
For many, we see an 18- or 19-year-old recently graduated from high school and attending college full time, but across Ventura County and northern Los Angeles County, another college student is increasingly important to our region’s future.
It might be the 35-year-old parent who left college years ago, the 47-year-old whose job disappeared, or the 55-year-old discovering that technology is changing the occupation that sustained a family for decades.
Adult learners are typically defined as students age 25 and older. I recently encountered a better description: “25-to-alive.”
The phrase captures something important: there is no typical adult learner, and there cannot be a typical adult-learner pathway.
At Moorpark College,
we enrolled 4,849 students between ages 25 and 50 in 2024-25, the highest number in our history. Their success matters not only to our college, but to our region’s economic future.
Ventura County reached a record 316,350 nonfarm jobs in 2024, yet our region also faces an aging and shrinking population that constrains the labor pool. Employers need skilled workers in biotechnology, cybersecurity, healthcare, education, engineering and emerging technologies.
We often talk about economic development as attracting new employers and talent. However, we should pay equal attention to developing the talent already here. The workforce we need is already living next door. Serving these students requires more than catchy marketing — they require intentional design.
Adult learners do not arrive at college empty-handed. They bring years of employment, family responsibility, problem-solving, military service and lived experience. Our job should not be to ask them to start over, but to recognize what they already know and help them reach what comes next.
That is why Credit for Prior Learning matters. Awarding appropriate credit for learning acquired through employment, military service and industry certifications can shorten the path to completion while communicating that your experience counts.
Flexibility matters just as much. For adults, flexibility is not an amenity. It is access. Work and caregiving responsibilities do not disappear. Life does not become less complicated because someone returns to college.
Moorpark College’s Program for Accelerated College Education, or PACE, demonstrates what sustained attention to adult learners can accomplish. Refined over several years, PACE provides structured, adult-focused pathways with eight-week online courses and clear program maps. From fall 2024 to fall 2025, enrollment grew from 122 to 316 students (approximately 159%) while the average GPA rose from 2.56 to 2.87. Fall 2026 enrollment stands at 300 students and continues to grow.
Programs serving adults improve through intentional design, sustained refinement and close attention to student outcomes. PACE provides a foundation for developing additional adult learner pathways.
Belonging matters, too. An adult returning to college after 20 years may be quietly asking through every interaction, “Is this place really meant for someone like me?” For a student who may never join a club or spend an afternoon on campus, an instructor, counselor, advisor or online classroom may effectively be the college.
Finally, pathways must lead somewhere. For adults balancing jobs and families, time may be their most precious resource. We have a responsibility to ask not only whether students earn credentials, but what those credentials allow them to do afterward. Do they lead to transfer, career advancement, better employment or greater economic mobility.
That is why employers must be partners in designing pathways, not simply waiting at the end to hire graduates. Moorpark works with more than 300 employers to connect education with work-based learning and changing workforce needs.
Perhaps it is time to reconsider the term “nontraditional student.” It assumes there is still one traditional way to experience college.
There isn’t.
The 19-year-old coming directly from high school remains central to our mission. So does the 35-year-old parent, the 47-year-old displaced worker and the 60-year-old preparing for what comes next.
The economic vitality of Ventura County and northern Los Angeles County will depend significantly on how well we develop the talent already living and working here. Our challenge is not simply to invite adults back to college. It is to build pathways that recognize their experience, accommodate the realities of their lives and allow their talent and potential to become opportunity.
Dr. Julius Sokenu is president of Moorpark College. To learn more about Moorpark College, visit MoorparkCollege.edu.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: The workforce we need is already here | Your Turn
