A survey of non-traditional students conducted last semester found the most important issues for this group of students are financial aid, student health care, parking, the availability of online courses, childcare and troubles with veteran’s affairs. Cynthia Dubois, faculty adviser for the non-traditional women’s student group, and Sabrina Laurent, coordinator for the women’s resources office, conducted the survey.

Non-traditional students are students 25 years or older who are continuing their education or students with a lapse in semester enrollment. Nicholls has an enrollment of 1,342 non-traditional students with 828 being female and 514 being male.

“The majority of non-traditional students take classes either at night, at a satellite location off campus or via the Internet,” Dubois said.

Non-traditional students are a significant group with previous life experiences that gained them certain higher levels of responsibility, Dubois said.

“Many of these students are parents and many work a full-time job, and with so much of their time dedicated to things away from school, it is hard for their opinions on certain school-related issues to be heard,” Dubois said.

Every non-traditional student enrolled at Nicholls was given a chance to fill out this survey, which was posted on the Blackboard Web site.

In all, 569 students responded, Dubois said. “This large response was much higher than our expectations of around 335 students or one-quarter of non-traditional students enrolled.