What Working Adults Need to Make Better Postsecondary Choices
This research was funded by College Futures Foundation.
Most working adults come to the postsecondary decision with striking clarity about what they want. The gap between that clarity and a well-matched choice isn't a motivation problem — it's a system that fails to provide support at three connected layers. Each is strengthened by the quality of what's inside it, and progress is possible on any or all at once.
Program-level data on cost, time to completion, and labor market outcomes that are specific and clear enough to act on.
Presented so adults can actually compare options against their real constraints and see what each would mean for them specifically.
Reaching adults through the right channel, from a source they trust, at the moment of decision, accounting for what they're actually up against.
Adults make intentional, clear-eyed decisions about their postsecondary pursuits — but constraints, missing information, and the workarounds they're forced into stand between that clarity and a well-matched choice. Select an insight to explore it.
Across every segment, adult learners articulated what they wanted with real specificity: higher wages, recognized credentials, usable skills, compatible schedules, supportive instructors. Roughly nine in ten California adults without a degree say at least one credential is very or extremely valuable. The question isn't whether postsecondary education is worth it — it's which path will deliver it.
But what adults value isn't always what the labor market rewards — and value itself is multi-dimensional, spanning economic, professional, personal, familial, network, and civic dimensions that traditional ROI measures routinely leave out. The difficulty doesn't start in figuring out what they want.
Work schedules, caregiving, transportation, and cost don't nudge preferences — they eliminate options outright. By the time an adult is "comparing programs," the realistic set may already be down to one or two. The operative question becomes Can I make this work now? rather than Will this pay off later?
The data adults need is fragmented, hard to interpret, and rarely connected to a decision. Comparable program-level data on cost, completion, and earnings — including for students who start but don't finish — doesn't exist at the scale decisions require. Four in ten adults who enrolled found it hard to locate career-outcome information.
With no reliable signal at hand, they lean on informal advice, brand names, degree type, and marketing language — signals that aren't designed to predict fit and may not lead to the most aligned choice.
Solutions work best when they target the actual barriers people face, so each strategy connects directly to an insight. The ten strategies organize across the same three layers as the diagnosis. Select a layer to see its strategies.
CBOs hold the trusted relationships. Institutions hold the data and the programs. Policymakers hold the system-level conditions. Funders hold the resources to build across them. No role can redesign the system alone — so select your role to see where you're best positioned to start.
How to use this section. Start with the overview to see who is best positioned to lead and support each of the ten strategies, then select your role for three concrete, near-term places to start — each scaled to the levers you actually hold and ordered from lowest to highest investment.
Any strategy can stand alone, but a comprehensive redesign applies several at once. These two concepts show what that looks like — each with two illustrative directions. Open a concept to explore the mockups; hover the numbered markers to see why each design choice is there and which barrier it addresses.
Flip the sequence. Instead of presenting options first and filtering later, any touchpoint — digital tool, advising intake, or CBO session — begins with an adult’s real-world parameters (hours available, format needs, cost ceiling, timeline). Only then does the conversation turn to programs that actually fit.
Close the channel gap. Adults trust institutional sources and knowledgeable people most — but rarely encounter them when deciding. Equip the people already in adults’ lives (CBO staff, employer HR, peer navigators) to deliver structured decision support at the right moment.
The diagnosis points to a clear next move: start where you already meet adults, and bring structure to that moment. These interactive worksheets turn the strategies above into something you can use this week — customized for each stakeholder, for mapping where your work shows up across the decision journey, which barriers are most relevant to you, and your highest-leverage place to start.
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This guide is a starting point, not a finish line. The adults in this research were already doing the hard part — thinking clearly about what they want. The work ahead is building the navigation and human-support layer that lets them act on it. If you're picking up one strategy, piloting a concept, or rethinking a single touchpoint, we'd like to know.