Adult Learning Campaign Selected Factoids

Adult Learners

• About one in four young adults (18-24) in the nation (and in the South) don't have at least a high school diploma. There are 2.6 million young adults in the nation.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau as reported on www.higheredinfo.org

• Only one in 10 young adults (18-24) without a high school diploma or equivalent receives adult education services in any given year. The adult education participation rate for the SREB states is slightly higher than in the United States as a whole.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Vocational and Adult Education,
"Adult Education and Family Literacy Act: Report to Congress on State Performance", 2003

• The majority of participants in adult education programs in the South are unemployed.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Vocational and Adult Education,
"Adult Education and Family Literacy Act: Report to Congress on State Performance", 2003

• There are more than five million adults in SREB states (25-44) without a high school diploma; fewer than 500,000 are enrolled in federally funded adult education programs.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Vocational and Adult Education,
"Adult Education and Family Literacy Act: Report to Congress on State Performance", 2003

• In the SREB states, black and Hispanic adults make up an equal portion (30 percent each) of students in adult education.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Vocational and Adult Education,
"Adult Education and Family Literacy Act: Report to Congress on State Performance", 2003

• There are 1.12 million adults in SREB states who participate in federally funded adult education programs; 46 percent are in Adult Basic Education; 26 percent are in Adult Secondary Education; and 29 percent are in English as a Second language.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Vocational and Adult Education,
"Adult Education and Family Literacy Act: Report to Congress on State Performance", 2003

• In 2000, SREB states exceeded the nation in the percentage of 18-24 year olds who have completed high school or GED.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Vocational and Adult Education,
"Adult Education and Family Literacy Act: Report to Congress on State Performance", 2003

Postsecondary Education

• In 2000, the average debt of a four-year public college graduate was approximately $17,000 - more than double the level in 1991.

Source: Lumina Foundation for Education (www.luminafoundation.org/access/index.html)

• The demographics of college have shifted. Only one in six students fits the mold of the “typical” 18-year-old who enrolls at a residential campus, stays four years and graduates with a baccalaureate degree.

Source: Lumina Foundation for Education ( www.luminafoundation.org/adult_learners/index.html )

• More than 30 percent of today's college students are adult learners.

Source: Lumina Foundation for Education ( www.luminafoundation.org/adult_learners/index.html )

• An estimated 48 percent of students at public institutions fail to complete degrees within six years, and half of these students leave during their freshman year.

Source: SREB Fact Book on Higher Education, 2003

• It is predicted that there will be 73 percent more Hispanic students graduating from public high schools in 2014 than in 2002. During the same period, there will be 11 percent fewer white graduates and 6 percent more black graduates.

Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education, “In Baby Boomlet, Number of New
High-School Graduates Is Projected to Rise”, February 6, 2004

• Among all regions of the United States, the South will have the most graduates from the lowest-income families in 2006-7.

Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education, “In Baby Boomlet, Number of New
High-School Graduates Is Projected to Rise”, February 6, 2004

• At the beginning of the new century, only eight percent of the rural South's African American adults (25-64) and five percent of Hispanics had a four year degrees.

Source: MDC “The State of the South 2002 Shadows in the Sunbelt Revisited”, September 2002

Electronic Learning

• Over 1.6 million students took at least one online course during the fall, 2002. Over one-third of those students took all of their courses online; approximately one in 10 took at least one online course.

Source: The Sloan Consortium, “Sizing the Opportunity: The Quality and Extent of
Online Education in the United States, 2002 and 2003”, September 2003

• Two-year institutions enrolled more that one-third of the 1.6 million students who took online courses in 2002.

Source: The Sloan Consortium, “Sizing the Opportunity: The Quality and Extent of
Online Education in the United States, 2002 and 2003”, September 2003

• The number of students taking at least one online course is projected to increase at nearly 20 % in the Fall, 2003, to 1.9 million students.

Source: The Sloan Consortium, “Sizing the Opportunity: The Quality and Extent of
Online Education in the United States, 2002 and 2003”, September 2003

• Among public higher education institutions, 97 percent offered at least one online or blended learning course and 49 percent offered online degree programs in 2002.

Source: The Sloan Consortium, “Sizing the Opportunity: The Quality and Extent of
Online Education in the United States, 2002 and 2003”, September 2003

Population Trends

• By 2006, Hispanics will be the largest minority group in the U.S. and by 2020 will account for 20 percent of the U.S. population.
   
• The South has four distinctive geographic areas of poverty: central Appalachia (including parts of KY, WV, TN, VA and NC), the Delta (MS, AR, LA), Black Belt (VA, NC, SC, GA, AL, MS), and the Rio Grande Valley of Texas.
   
• In 1999, the non-metro South had more high school dropouts than college graduates in the working adult population (25-64). By contrast, the metro South had twice as many college graduates as high school dropouts.

Source: MDC “The State of the South 2002 Shadows in the Sunbelt Revisited”, September 2002

• The Southern workforce is aging: the number of adults 20-44 is expected to decline by a half a million by 2010.

Source: MDC “The State of the South 2002 Shadows in the Sunbelt Revisited”, September 2002

• Between1980-2000, the metro South's population grew by 42 percent (14 % in the non-metro South) and job growth by 67 percent for the metro-South (31 percent for the non-metro South).

Source: MDC “The State of the South 2002 Shadows in the Sunbelt Revisited”, September 2002

• While metropolitan areas in the South have grown dramatically, so have poverty levels-over 20 percent of citizens in cities over 750,000 live in poverty.

Source: MDC “The State of the South 2002 Shadows in the Sunbelt Revisited”, September 2002