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The number of college applicants who are parents has grown by more than 200 percent in recent years.
Financially independent students—including adult learners, emancipated traditional-age students and veterans—make up a large and fast-growing portion of the college applicant pool, according to a new report from Common App. Those students, who are more likely to be low income or first generation, also face greater barriers to enrollment and completion than their peers, the report found.
The number of independent college applicants more than doubled in the last eight years, according to the report, while the number of applicants as a whole grew only by about 50 percent. Domestic applicants over the age of 23 grew 223 percent between the 2016–17 and 2023–24 application cycles; the number of applicants with children grew by 201 percent.
At the same time, the report found, independent applicants had a lower rate of enrollment at four-year institutions compared to traditional students, as well as a lower completion rate for four-year programs.
Among students over 23 who applied to at least one institution in 2016–17, fewer than 30 percent enrolled in a four-year institution while 40 percent enrolled in community college, according to the report and data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Those students also have much lower graduation rates: between 2016–17 and 2022–23, fewer than 30 percent of students who applied to college when they were older than 23 completed their degrees within six years.
That means colleges may be ignoring a burgeoning population of prospective students who struggle to move beyond the application process to matriculation, or from enrollment to timely graduation.
The report focuses on four subgroups of students: those older than 23 at the time of enrolling, military-affiliated applicants, traditional-age students without parents or who are financially emancipated from their parents, and applicants who are parents of dependent children. The students are first-time, first-year applicants mainly to four-year programs; the report does not track independent students who stopped out of college and returned later in life.
Independent applicants from all four groups were 60 percent more likely to identify as first generation, more likely to be eligible for application fee waivers from Common App and more likely to live in lower-income neighborhoods than the national applicant pool. They also had lower grades in high school: those over the age of 23 had an average GPA of 3.1, compared to 3.65 for non-independent applicants.
On average, independent applicants submitted far fewer applications per student via Common App. Adult learners and veterans in particular lagged behind: they applied to two and three colleges on average, respectively, compared to about seven for the general population. They were also more likely to apply to colleges close to home than their peers. Between 65 and 71 percent of independent students’ applications went to in-state institutions, compared to 54 percent of other applicants’.
The report mostly relies on internal Common App data, which limits its perspective on nontraditional students: Only a handful of community colleges use the platform, most of which joined in the past year, and the majority of independent students end up attending two-year institutions.
Rodney Hughes, a senior data scientist at Common App and author of the report, said that makes the substantial growth in independent applicants even more of an indication that they’re becoming a dominant force in the sector—and a population that deserves focus from four-year institutions as well as community colleges and short-term credential programs.
Federal data backs this up: More than half of all students who filed a FAFSA in 2012 were independent students, according to a 2021 analysis from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR).
The issue is that, more often than not, independent students don’t make it past submitting an application to a four-year institution. Because they usually have no built-in support system, like parents or counselors, colleges are left to fill the gap, Hughes said.
Independent students “are really not located in high schools at the time they’re applying, and they may not have access to counselors. So what are the channels through which application or college information can flow?” Hughes asked. “Institutions may need to devise specific strategies to reach these applicants directly during the college search process.”
The report suggests that colleges should partner more actively with organizations that are already connected to networks of independent and nontraditional students—like workforce development offices, veterans’ services and childcare centers—to improve their outreach efforts on the benefits and affordability of degree programs.
Those strategies could also be tailored to meet the needs of specific independent student populations, including students with dependent children. Of the approximately 34,000 independent students who applied to a four-year institution in 2016–17, nearly 9,000 were parents, according to the Common App report.
Jennifer Turner, senior research associate at the IWPR, studies outcomes for students who are parents, particularly single mothers. She said that currently, one in five college students is a parent, if two-year institutions are included, but only 40 percent graduate in six years compared to 60 percent of those without children. The numbers are even worse when other factors like income level and race are taken into account. Black single mothers, Turner said, have a six-year graduation rate of about 30 percent.
“If colleges don’t address these students’ issues, it’s going to have a big impact on overall student success,” she said. “A lot of colleges—most, I would say—don’t collect data on student parents at all, so they don’t necessarily know how many are on their campuses. They’re an invisible population.”
