Today's institutions recognize that it is often not a straight line to obtaining a college degree, especially for busy people. Community College programs cater to working adults, including a pathway to four-year degrees offered through transfer guides and agreements. Often career pressures, employment changes or the demands of family and life circumstances will disrupt the degree progress. This is why it is important to understand the transfer process and learn the ropes of continuing education. The stop and start nature of students moving around the education system adds complexity and often frustration as you change colleges or degree programs.

There are many institutions that promote adult degree completion programs. Some are online. Some are classroom based. More are hybrid, and they combine the online format with some classroom experience. These programs offer to accelerate degree completion by making the form of instruction more convenient outside of working schedules for adults allowing credits to be accumulated quickly, but they are not all equal in how they treat prior learning and count course credits earned somewhere else toward degree requirements.

College and University Adult Degree Completion Programs are very common in urban, high population areas. Rural college and university program offerings also cater to adults who have to travel great distances to attend class, usually from work or home. This is why we are seeing an upswing in more distance education and online courses, addressing the rising demand for convenience by adult learners. Unfortunately, this also places a burden on the student prior to investing the time and money in the coursework to validate the transferability of the course or courses to other institutions. Why? The risk of not finishing a complete program is statistically high.

If you are an adult learner who has 'stopped out' due to life circumstances, it is within your best interest to investigate returning to college and finishing your degree. Obtaining a degree will offer you the potential for increased income, an improved standard-of-living and better job security.