Across all of Ohio University’s campuses, non-traditional students make up 26 percent of the undergraduate student population. Though that percentage has risen during the past decade, the university has never targeted specific types of students in recruiting efforts.
Non-traditional students comprise the following groups, categorized by the university: commuter, veteran, workforce, e-learning, students with children, and students who enroll late because of financial limitations.
Those students come from a variety of learning circumstances, said Kris Kumfer, OU’s coordinator of special populations.
“The definition of non-traditional students has become very broad,” said Kumfer. “We refer to them as ‘special populations.’ ”
However, OU does not specifically target these “special populations” when trying to attract applicants, said Craig Cornell, vice provost for enrollment management.
“We don’t differentiate in marketing strategies when trying to recruit students to the university,” Cornell said. “There’s the issue of where exactly do our non-traditional students fall under. We don’t have a separate budget that’s specifically targeted to different groups of non-traditional students.”
The base budget for marketing and advertisement geared toward general student recruitment is estimated at about $600,000 annually, he said.
Instead, the recruitment budget is decided by myriad factors.
“It really depends on what time span we have,” he said. “Also, we have to match up with commercial time, air time, and other ways of advertisement we could think of. So it really depends, and budget goes on from there.”
Once here, the university does make an effort to help the newly acquired “special population” of students acclimate to a collegiate atmosphere.
Non-traditional students face different challenges transitioning to life on campus, said Char Rae, director of degree programs and academic adviser at OU.
“Typically, a traditional student is around the ages of 17 and 19 and he or she lives on campus,” she said. “So there is a want expressed by some of the students that are commuter students or fall into the special populations description that want to meet other students on campus.”
Such programs include the Commuter’s Lounge in Bentley Hall, Rae added, which is geared to help non-traditional students adjust.
“Most of the time, non-traditional students don’t live on campus and don’t really have some place on campus to call a home base,” she said. “With this program, students can touch base with one another, have some place to eat lunch, or even make a few friendships that are normally made through living together in a residence hall.”
As for non-traditional students who attend OU, Kumfer said the university just tries to create an environment suitable for all of those looking to further their education.
“All students want to be a part of something,” she said. “Non-traditional means so much more now then it did when it was a specific term. Now, non-traditional means so much more than that.”
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