Back to School: A Life Course Approach to Understanding Men's and Women's College Attendance in Adulthood

The composition of college enrollments has shifted drastically in the past 30 years, as older students account for a rapidly growing share of matriculants. We use data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study to examine the factors that influence men's and women's college enrollment and degree receipt at midlife. Using the life course paradigm as a guiding framework, we examine whether family transitions - including divorce, widowhood, caregiving, and empty nest - trigger men's and women's educational transitions. We also argue that family characteristics and macroeconomic influences do not operate in a mechanistic fashion; rather, individual career aspirations must also be incorporated into the study of adult education. Results from event history analyses reveal that divorce and widowhood substantially increase women's risk of midlife college attendance. Women who (at age 35 ) sought a different, higher status job in the future have an elevated risk of returning to school. For men, few variables predicted returns to college although past military service substantially increased men's risk of returning to school at midlife. The findings suggest that women's life course is more fluid (and less "orderly") than men's, given recent shifts in the opportunities facing current cohorts of midlife women.

Dataset(s): Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS): USA, 1957, 1975, 1993.