Washington Monthly - September/October 2019 - 50

A NOTE ON METHODOLOGY:
BEST COLLEGES FOR
ADULT LEARNERS
e began with the 3,295 postsecondary institutions in the fifty states and Washington, D.C.,
that were listed in the Department of Education's
Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS)
as being active in the 2017-18 academic year and had a
Carnegie basic classification in 2018 of between 1 and 23,
excluding many colleges that only grant certificates as
well as special-focus institutions such as medical schools
or rabbinical programs. We dropped any colleges that
were graduate-only institutions, did not participate in any
federal financial aid programs or have any College Scorecard outcomes data, were one of the five service academies (to be consistent with the main rankings), or have
closed or merged since 2017-18. An additional 150 colleges
were excluded for having fewer than 100 students in any
of the last three years in which they were open.
The next sample restriction was to exclude colleges from the rankings that did not have data on all of the
outcome measures. First, 249 colleges were dropped for
not participating in the College Board's Annual Survey of
Colleges, which is key in our rankings. We then excluded
925 colleges for missing data on student loan repayment
rates, the earnings of adult (independent) students, graduation rates for part-time students, and the share of adult
students. For colleges where at least 75 percent of students were over age twenty-five, we substituted earnings
and repayment rate data for all students if separate data
for adult students was not available.
Eliminating colleges without student loan repayment
rates for independent students is the most noteworthy
restriction, as this includes two groups of colleges. The
first group is colleges with small percentages of adult students, who are unlikely to do well in our rankings anyway.
The second group is colleges that do not allow their students to access federal student loans, which includes a
number of community colleges. As research has shown
that access to loans improves students' academic outcomes, we are comfortable excluding colleges that have
chosen to act against the best interest of students.
Our resulting sample is 2,114 colleges, of which 1,136 are
considered four-year colleges (based on Carnegie classification
and whether they awarded more bachelor's degrees than certificates or associate's degrees) and 978 are two-year colleges. We
show rankings for the top fifty four-year and top fifty two-year
colleges. (Another fifty in each category are available online.)

September/October 2019

As a final precaution to highlight especially questionable colleges, we used the Department of Education's list
of colleges on the most serious level of heightened cash
monitoring for significant financial or operating concerns.
None of these colleges made the top 800 in our lists.
We used the following eight metrics in the 2019
rankings:
(1) Ease of transfer/enrollment. This is designed to
reflect how easy it is for adult students to either initially
enroll or transfer in a given college. It includes data from
IPEDS and the Annual Survey of Colleges on whether there
is an orientation program for transfer students, whether
transcript review is available prior to admission, whether students can transfer in at an upper level (seniors for
four-year colleges and sophomores for two-year colleges), whether a college is test-optional for adult students or
open admission (four-year colleges only), and whether a
transfer adviser is available. Four-year colleges could score
up to five points on this metric, while two-year colleges
could score up to four points.
(2) Flexibility of programs. This metric considers
whether colleges are flexible enough to meet the needs
of adult students, and again is based on IPEDS and College
Board data. Colleges receive a point if they allow credits to
be earned by life experience/prior learning assessment, if
credits can be earned via examination, if accelerated programs are available, if at least some distance programs
are available, if independent study classes are available, if
student-designed majors are allowed, if weekend and/or
evening classes are offered, if academic support is available after six p.m., or if academic support is available on
weekends. Colleges could earn a maximum of nine points
on this metric.
(3) Services available for adult students. This is based
on IPEDS and College Board data and reflects whether a
college offers services that adult students are most likely
to use. Colleges receive a point if they offer general services for adult students, financial aid counseling, on-campus
daycare, counseling services, job placement services, or
veterans' services. Colleges could earn at most six points
on this metric.
(4) The percent of adult students (age 25+) at the
college. This measure is from IPEDS and represents a
three-year average percentage of undergraduate students who are age twenty-five or older, which is the age
at which students are automatically considered independent from their parents for financial aid purposes. We used
this measure instead of the percentage of independent
students from the College Scorecard due to there being
no missing data on this measure and the extremely strong
correlation between the two measures.

Washington Monthly - September/October 2019

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