St. Davids, PA: Eastern University has been recognized by online resource, BestColleges.com, as one of the 50 Best Colleges for Older Students. Eastern was the only university in the Philadelphia area to make the list and stands as the top ranked university in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.
University Provost, Dr. Keith Iddings, said this of the recognition, "Eastern is very gratified that we are once again recognized as a great place for adults to study and grow. As part of our institutional commitment to offering high quality higher education to groups that have typically been excluded from universities by life circumstances, we've been offering convenient programs for older adults for 28 years. We continue to work hard to improve and expand our programs to better serve adults of all backgrounds."
According to the list, "nontraditional" students are described as adults aged 25 or older "who took time away from academia before beginning or continuing an undergraduate degree." Schools in the top 50 list have a nontraditional student body of 25% or higher and were chosen based on high quality academics, student engagement, and the amount of programs geared towards adult students.
Eastern University was found to excel in all of these areas and has a personal profile on the BestColleges.com website.
BestColleges.com is an online college planning resource that assists prospective students in making the best choice or their future academic endeavors. With comprehensive data on over 7,000 institutions from the National Center for Education Statistics, BestColleges.com rank schools in areas that would most benefit the average prospective student. Their website had this to say: "Through the use of student surveys, faculty surveys, independent research, ranking systems and the input of highly credible and authoritative sources, we have created a database of schools to help students and their families learn more about their best options for higher education."