Commission members believe that Penn State's multi-campus system is one of its greatest strengths, allowing adults to earn degrees from a local campus. But members say that overall the University must alter policies and procedures to meet the changing needs of its changing student population. The first real challenge of this commission is to identify those practices and procedures that have, over time, unwittingly been aimed at traditional-age students. Then we must find a way to alter or eliminate them. Romano said this is a University-wide initiative that will require cooperation and collaboration.
Some campuses already do it very well.
But we need to provide opportunities to share this information and illuminate those best practices. In the 12-campus Commonwealth College alone, more than 28 percent of its nearly 14,000 undergraduate student population is adult learners. Other popular Penn State locations for adult learners include York at 47 percent and Penn State Fayette at 39 percent. Some of the areas and obstacles affecting adult learners that will be more carefully scrutinized by the commission were pointed out in a 1990 task force report. In the report, it was noted that adult learners are at a disadvantage when selecting courses and are relegated to non-degree status.