According to Bean & Metzner (1985), generally, a nontraditional student can be defined as a... 1 answer below »

Literature Review on Non-Traditional Students
Nontraditional Students
According to Bean & Metzner (1985), generally, a nontraditional student can be defined as a category of study at the universities and college. It should also be noted down that, nontraditional students are also the post-secondary students or candidates who are 25 years old and older. There are several important differences found between the traditional and non-traditional student in term of characteristics. The nontraditional student has different campus support, barriers, instructional support and other facilities as compare to traditional students. Such types of differences are found among the traditional and nontraditional student due to their specific needs (Chen & Hossler, 2017).
As an example, a management student with a bachelors degree in management may want a master's degree in business management. It is also observed that many nontraditional students are not attending university or college for career reasons, instead, they value personal enrichment. Nontraditional students require too much support and help from the traditional students. Along with this, it is also important to know that, in the present time, the population of the nontraditional students are continuously increasing. Most of the students are parents, full time employees, caregivers and retirees. It is estimated that more than 40% of the current undergraduate population of American universities and colleges are nontraditional students. This is the main reason that, throughout the United States, there is rapid growth in the population of nontraditional students (Gilardi &Guglielmetti, 2011).