Going the Distance in Adult College Completion: Lessons from the ‘Non-traditional No More’ Project

From 2008 to 2011, WICHE worked with six states (Arkansas, Colorado, Nevada, New Jersey, North Dakota, and South Dakota) to improve policies and practices to increase adult degree completion as a way to raise overall state educational attainment levels. With funding from Lumina Foundation, the project, known as Nontraditional No More: Policy Solutions for Adult Learners, identified and eliminated barriers that keep adults with prior college credit from returning to postsecondary education and completing their degrees. By bringing together state and institutional leaders, the project pursued two main objectives: identifying “ready adults,” or those who earned a significant number of prior college credits before leaving postsecondary education without earning a credential; and building a pathway to postsecondary success.