Is 24 Too Old to Get a Bachelor’s Degree? A High School Teacher’s Perspective
I was packing up my grading folder after fall parent-teacher conferences, brushing PTA cookie crumbs off my notebook and already thinking about the microwave burrito I had waiting in my car, when Mia’s mom pulled me aside. She twisted the strap of her canvas tote printed with Mia’s old high school cross country logo and kept her voice low, like she didn’t want other parents waiting in the hallway to overhear. Mia graduated two years ago, worked full time at the local grocery store to pay off her old car loan, and now she’s talking about enrolling in a bachelor’s degree program. “She keeps saying she’s 24, that everyone else will be 18, that she’s too old to start over,” she said. “I don’t know what to tell her. Is she?”
This isn’t the first time I’ve gotten this question. I’ve taught at a public high school in a working class town for 12 years, and more kids than you’d think take a few years off after graduation to work, care for family, or figure out what they actually want before they even think about college. One of my favorite former students, Javi, graduated in 2016, put off college immediately when his dad got diagnosed with cancer, and went to work full time in construction to pay the family mortgage and keep his little sister in high school. He called me three years later, when he was 24, just after he enrolled in a bachelor’s program for elementary education. He was on his lunch break, I could hear hammering in the background, and he said he was already panicking. The kid sitting next to him in intro bio had spent the whole before-class period bragging about his new Honda that his parents bought him for graduation. Javi had been paying property taxes for three years. He said he felt like a grandpa walking into the lecture hall.
It didn’t take long for that awkwardness to fade, though. Javi was the one everyone in his study group went to when they needed help editing a paper or figuring out the professor’s weird grading rubric. He was used to showing up 15 minutes early to work, so he never skipped a 8 a.m. class to sleep in. He did his homework on his lunch break and on weekends between framing decks, because that was the schedule he’d already built for himself after years of working full time. By his second year, he was leading a peer study group for other non-traditional students on campus. He got a $5,000 scholarship for his senior project on supporting first-generation students who take gap time before college. Today, he’s a third-grade teacher down the hall from me, and he’s one of the most popular teachers in the building. His kids love him, because he gets what it’s like to worry about money at home, or to feel like you’re a little behind everyone else.
The biggest mistake parents make when their 24-year-old says they want to start a bachelor’s is leading with either doubt or over-the-top generic encouragement. I’ve seen parents immediately say “aren’t you throwing away four years you could be working?” which just shuts the whole conversation down. But I’ve also seen parents gush “it’s never too late to chase your dream!” which puts unfair pressure on a kid who’s just trying to make a practical next step. The most helpful thing you can do is actually really simple: say, “Tell me how you’re planning to make this work” and just listen. Most 24-year-olds who get this far have already run the math in their head. They’ve worked a few jobs, they know what they like and what they don’t, they’re not picking a major because their friend is doing it or their parent told them to. Giving them space to talk through their plan helps them solidify it, and it lets you ask questions about cost or time commitment without making them feel judged.
If they’re worried about fitting in or affording tuition, you can do one concrete, low-effort thing: sit down with them for 20 minutes and look up non-traditional student resources at the schools they’re considering. Almost every public university has dedicated advisors for students over 22, and most have specific grants and scholarships that only non-traditional students can apply for. Many also have hybrid or evening class schedules that are built for people who work full time, so they won’t be stuck in a room full of 18-year-old freshmen if that’s what they’re worried about. It’s not a big project, just a quick search that can cut down on a lot of their anxiety before they even apply.
I also tell parents to stop fixating on the “you’ll graduate at 28” line. You’re going to be 28 anyway. The only difference is that at 28, you’ll have the degree you wanted, instead of wondering what would have happened if you’d tried. That doesn’t mean every 24-year-old who starts will finish, and that’s okay too. I had another former student, Lila, who started a nursing degree at 24, quit after a year when she got promoted to store manager at the grocery store she worked at, and realized she didn’t need a degree to hit the salary goal she’d set. That wasn’t a waste of a year. She took some gen ed classes, figured out what she wanted, and moved on. No one talks about it when 18-year-olds drop out after a year, so there’s no reason to treat it as a failure when a 24-year-old does the same.
I ran into Mia at the grocery store last week, when I stopped in for milk after work. She rang up my order, and when I asked how the application process was going, she grinned and said she’d turned in her community college transfer app the week before. She’s still nervous, she says. She still worries she’ll be the oldest person in every lecture hall, that she’ll be behind on all the stuff the kids fresh out of high school already know. I told her Javi still says he’s the youngest person on the school’s maintenance crew and the oldest person in most new teacher trainings, and it doesn’t hurt him none. We don’t know how it’ll go for Mia. She might love it, graduate, and get the job she wants. She might decide it’s not for her after a semester or two, and that’s fine too. Either way, 24 isn’t too late to try. It’s just the age she is right now, and her next step can start whenever she’s ready.
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