Educator, Planner and Advocate: Higher Education for Adults in the New Millennium.

Individuals, corporations, institutions of higher education, and societies need to be knowledgeable, efficient, and savvy to be competitive in today's world. Increases in technology have changed employment roles and it is predicted that many individuals will have educational and training needs throughout their lifespan (Puryear & McDaniels, 1990). The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that 90 percent of the fastest growing jobs in the United States will require education beyond high school (United States Department of Labor, 2007). Twenty-four percent of the United States population currently has a bachelor's degree or higher (U.S. Census, 2003). Adult learners make up 39% of the undergraduate population in the United States (National Center for Educational Statistics [NCES], 2002). Federal and state governments as well as institutions of higher education are espousing the need for increased bachelor degree attainment in the United States. The United States Department of Education's Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2007-2012 included the following statement: "the Department will work to transform adult education programs to include transition services that enable graduates to prepare for, enter, and succeed in postsecondary education" (p. 30). Increasing the number of adult learners was also discussed at a meeting held June 10, 2008, titled Examining the National Purposes of American Higher Education which was co-sponsored by the University of Virginia and the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges. According to Lederman (2008), by the end of the day there was a general consensus that state and public universities need to double the number of people receiving a higher education over the next two decades and that most of that increase will be with individuals who are underprepared and/or nontraditional. At a time when the need for a more highly educated work force has been recognized, financial support for initiatives with dual roles of increasing enrollment and persistence of specific sub-populations has not been forthcoming. In fact, public universities, which rely on state funding to help keep the costs of higher education down, have experienced a steady decline in state funding since 1980 (National Education Association [NEA], 2003). These decreases in state funding for public institutions are often responded to by increasing the cost of tuition (NEA, 2003), thus limiting access to higher education for many. Institutions are faced with trying to increase enrollment and rates of persistence while keeping costs of any special programming at a minimum. While businesses have always been responsive to changes in market conditions, these ideas are now impacting institutions of higher education. Stakeholders in higher education are increasingly considering program assessment and effectiveness from a corporate culture perspective. Decisions are being made based on economics (Frostd & Taylor, 2001). Some visible results of this change to a more market driven orientation are increased numbers of distance education courses, larger classrooms, using more temporary faculty, and outsourcing student services to low bidding private contractors (NEA, 2009). In this environment, student affairs divisions may be at a significant disadvantage due to being on the expense side of the accounting ledger without having a clearly defined impact on the income side. Indirectly, student support and services retain students; however, since income is most often captured by numbers such as students in specific majors and average number of total credits, the positive impact on the budget based on the work of student affairs personnel can be hard to quantify. The purpose of this article is to identify an issue that impacts individuals and institutions on a seemingly individual basis but collectively affects numerous program participants and their communities. Specifically, this article is about the tension between the need to provide student support service programming with the need to advocate for the funding needed to provide this type of programming. …