Older, nontraditional students UAPB aim

Accuplacer helps ease application qualms

The University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff is the latest public four-year university to institute a separate policy for admitting first-time, nontraditional students.

Now nontraditional students — those 25 years or older who have graduated from high school or completed a General Educational Development test and who have never attended college — can forgo the ACT and SAT college-entrance exams. Instead, they can apply online to UAPB, pay the application fee, submit a high school transcript or GED certificate and receive “suitable” Accuplacer exam scores in English, math and reading, the policy states.

“What we have found over time is that we have hundreds of students who apply, but if you’re 52 years old, you’re really hesitant to sit down for the ACT exam,” said Linda Okiror, UAPB’s associate vice chancellor for enrollment management and student success. “And actually our admissions office tells me that students actually call and withdraw their applications rather than take the exam. So the Accuplacer is an option that is really statewide.”

Other schools use a similar method, she said. The University of Arkansas at Little Rock and the University of Central Arkansas in Conway allow students to send in Accuplacer scores or take that exam in lieu of the traditional college-entrance exams. UCA only does so for nontraditional students, or those 25 or older.

UAPB’s change comes as the state is pushing to raise the percentage of Arkansans who hold a high-demand technical certificate or degree from the current 39.5 percent to 60 percent by 2025. In southeast Arkansas, the percentage is even lower: 23.9 percent in Jefferson County, 18.5 percent in Bradley County and 16.3 percent in Desha County, according to the Lumina Foundation, a private group working to increase the number of Americans who hold high-skilled job training certificates or degrees.

Arkansas has some 213,987 adults who have some college but no degree, and an even larger number — 504,769 — have either a high school diploma or a GED diploma and no college whatsoever, the foundation said.

The state’s goal is not attainable if higher-education leaders focus solely on the traditional high school graduate who enrolls directly into college the next semester, they have said. The idea behind the goal is to produce a larger number of graduates who are ready to fill future workforce demands. A prepared workforce can attract businesses to the state, which can create high-wage jobs and improve quality of life overall.

Since 2014, more than 300 students without college-entrance exam scores have applied to UAPB but never enrolled, Okiror said. About 12 students without scores have applied to the university for the fall 2018 semester, she said, adding they are aiming to be first-time freshmen.

“If they’ve applied as a freshman for a college degree and you’re 50 years old, what does that say?,” she asked. “That says that someone wants to go to college. They want to get a degree. They want to help their family. They want a job promotion. They want a job.”

Even if it’s only the 12 students who may be admitted, she said, that’s 12 more that UAPB was able to help.

Nontraditional students seeking to enroll at UAPB must get certain cutoff scores on the Accuplacer exams to be admitted, Okiror said. She didn’t know the exact cut scores, but said they were the equivalent of the ACT scores needed for each type of admission.