According to the Department of Commuter and Non-Traditonal Student Services, a non-traditional student is any student over the age of 24. Nationally, these students make up 24 percent of undergraduates. At NIU, they make up 17 percent of the undergraduate student population, coming in at 2,903 students.

Many of these students return to school either to finish an education that was disrupted or to gain the necessary degrees to change professions, said Sharon Howard, former adviser of Students Who are Non-Traditional.

However, they do not have an easy time of it. Many non-traditional students are juggling not only school and homework, but families and full- or part-time jobs as well.

“The average college student is busy,” said Troy Melendez, adviser of SWAN and director of the Department of Commuter and Non-Traditional Student Services. “Add to that a family and a part-time or full-time job and [non-traditional students] are that much busier.”

Indeed, non-traditional students experience the challenge having so many responsibilities brings.

“A major challenge for non-traditional students is maintaining school work and family and managing life,” said Kurt Bartnik, a 32-year-old returning student in his junior year as a pre-computer science major.

Bartnik and his wife are both in school, work part-time jobs and share the

responsibilities of caring for their daughter, whether it be taking her to the Child Care Center or taking her to her various activities in the evenings.

A day for Bartnik begins at 6 a.m. and usually does not end until 11 p.m. or midnight, depending on how much schoolwork he has left to complete after his daughter is in bed for the night.

Some of the major problems non-traditional students have are making a schedule that fits their needs. Also, they sometimes have trouble balancing everything they have to do and meeting deadlines for course work.

As far as professors making exceptions, it varies, Bartnik said. In his experience, some professors will work with a student if he explains his situation and others remain strict on the course requirements.

In addition, while NIU has had just under 3,000 non-traditional students a year for the last two years, having more than one non-traditional student in a class is fairly uncommon.

“It is not uncommon for me to be the only student over 25 in a class,” Bartnik said.

With new services, such as the Department of Commuter and Non-Traditional Student Services available to students, Melendez is hoping to attract more non-traditional students to NIU.

Melendez expects numbers of non-traditional students to remain steady, if not rise. More people are choosing to go back to school every day and now NIU has services to offer them, he said.