Julianne Bell

Perception of Barriers by Non-Traditional Graduate Students

Abstract: Graduate students face a number of obstacles to completing their degree objective. Graduate students who are older than the traditional student, such as those 30 years old and above, can face additional obstacles that make completing their degree difficult; financial responsibilities, family issues, and lack of peer social groups are some of the barriers to success expressed in the literature. I propose to determine the perceived barriers to degree completion for this nontraditional group of graduate students and create a clearinghouse that will provide resources addressing their primary concerns.