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etains new information. According to various sources it can be determined that the average age of the new age student has increased from 18 year olds, up to 28 to 32 year olds. This student is much more mature and stable in that they have the advantage of real life experience. They have had to balance budgets, purchase homes, raise children and make very important life decisions. This gives them an edge up as it pertains to the discipline needed to succeed in a higher education environment. They have also been exposed to a number of new technologies giving them another advantage. When you gauge the type of tools that are accessible by students and compare it to the resources that were available you find that students of today's generation have it easier. How does this fact affect our new, non-traditional student? Well in several ways. When you think about study and research habits of yesterday you probably think of a lot of students sitting in the library going through book after book. Now you can sit literally anywhere in the world and look through those same books and even interact with fellow classmates while working at your own pace. So it's my opinion that when you combine the study habits of older more seasoned students with the resources of today then you have the 21st century student. This student knows how to best utilize the resources available to them to achieve positive outcomes in assignments. There are, however, several misconceptions about non-traditional students. Some can argue that non-traditional students do not fit well into today's education process. One reason is that of student housing. Lonnie Allen states that non-traditional students have become the 'white elephants on campus'. He goes on to state 'it would be strange for someone to see older students walking in and out of resident halls they call home.' (Lonnie Allen)

One way to view nontraditional students in this present day is not as a group that is characterized by socially constructed traits such as age or ethnic background or by roles connected by such terms as; 'dropout', 'immigrant' or 'first generation'. Rather, nontraditional students can be better viewed as a disadvantaged population. In many aspects, the disadvantage can be linked to economic status. Many economist say that we are currently living in a recession period and with the price of pretty much everything from gas to milk on the rise, colleges and other institutions have no choice but to respond the same way. Some even compare the current financial status of America to that of the recession of the '90s. During the recession of the 1990's, 'most institutions responded by again increasing tuition sharply, a response well honed in the last recession and actively encouraged by many governors.' (David Breneman) Being that most of our non traditional students can be identified as working class adults, making the decision to return to school in the middle of a lay offs and cut backs can be difficult, not to mention the sharp rise in tuition. With all these variables in place, it's easy to see how this can place the non-traditional student at a bit of a disadvantage. Another way to view the non-traditional student is risk factors. Risk Factors is another concept that is tied to adult students, but the details are not disaggregated by institutional type. A National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) table, 'Percentage of 1999-2000 undergraduates with various risk characteristics,' ad