Is 24 Too Old to Get a Bachelor’s Degree? A High School Counselor’s Real Take
Last Tuesday, I was packing up my desk after back-to-back parent-teacher conferences, a half-eaten peanut butter granola bar sticking out of my crumpled lunch bag, when there was a soft knock on the door. It was Mia, who graduated from my high school six years ago, leaning against the doorframe in a Target work vest with a coffee stain down the side. She twisted the drawstring of her faded 2017 senior hoodie and asked if she could sit for a minute.
I’d been expecting this, actually. She’d texted me a few days earlier saying she wanted to talk about applying to bachelor’s programs in special education, but was nervous. Once she sat down, she got right to the point: “I’ll turn 24 this summer, right when I’d start. All my friends from high school already graduated, got jobs, some are buying houses. Am I too far behind? Is 24 too old to start a bachelor’s degree?”
I get this question all the time, not just from 20-something students, but from their parents too. Just last month, a mom came in panicking because her 24-year-old son quit his construction job to apply for civil engineering programs, and she kept repeating that he’d “messed up his timeline.” Most people still carry this unspoken rule that you go to college straight from high school, graduate by 22, and start your career right after. Anything outside that feels wrong, like you’re starting late.
Ten years ago, I had another student named Javi sit in that same chair, asking the exact same question at 24. He’d joined the Army right out of high school, did a five-year enlistment, got out, got married, had a toddler, and decided he wanted to go to nursing school. He was convinced he’d stick out as the old guy in all his classes, that he’d never catch up to people who’d started younger. Javi graduated at 28, now works in the pediatric ICU at our local hospital, and just took his kid to Disney World for spring break this year. It wasn’t easy: he worked night shifts at an urgent care to pay tuition, failed his first chemistry class, missed three years of his son’s weekend soccer games because he had labs on Saturdays. It was messy, and there were plenty of days he wanted to quit. But he got where he wanted to go, and 24 ended up being just the right time for him to start.
The first thing I tell parents who ask me this is that 24 isn’t an outlier anymore. The National Center for Education Statistics says almost 40% of all undergrads in the U.S. are over 22, so a 24-year-old starting a bachelor’s is barely outside the average. Most 18-year-old first-years are too busy stressing about their own homework and dorm life to care how old the person sitting next to them in lecture is. If your kid is worried about fitting in, a concrete thing you can do is help them look up the student organization list for the schools they’re applying to. Almost every public and mid-sized private school has a group for non-traditional or returning students. Javi joined his, and the group set up a babysitting co-op, shared used textbooks, and studied together for midterms—no awkward small talk about sorority mixers required.
Another concrete step most people don’t think about: sit down with your kid and list every job, certification, or long-term volunteer role they’ve had since high school, then ask the admissions office if any of that counts for transfer credit. Most schools now offer credit for relevant work experience. Mia has worked as a shift lead at Target for three years, managing 10 other employees and handling scheduling and inventory. When we checked the special ed program she’s applying to, that experience counted for three general education credits in organizational leadership, which knocked an entire semester off her time to degree. That cuts down on tuition costs and gets her into the workforce faster, which takes a lot of the pressure off.
A lot of parents also carry unnecessary guilt around this. Mia’s mom called me a week after Mia’s first visit, crying, saying if she’d been able to save more for college right after high school, Mia wouldn’t be “behind.” I told her Mia isn’t behind. She spent the last six years caring for her younger brother, who has autism, and navigating the special education system as a family member. That experience will make her a far better special ed teacher than any 22-year-old who went straight from high school to college and has only ever seen the system from a student’s perspective. Non-traditional students on average have higher GPAs and lower dropout rates than 18-year-old first-years, because they’re not in college because their parents told them to go or because they didn’t know what else to do. They know exactly what they want, so they show up ready to work.
That doesn’t mean there’s no doubt or hard days. Mia still texts me when she sees a high school friend’s Instagram post about a promotion or a new house, and says she feels like she’s wasting time. She’s still worried about balancing 20 hours a week at Target with full-time classes, and how she’ll cover the remaining tuition after her savings and grants. There’s no perfect, neat answer that makes all the worry go away.
Mia submitted her last application three days ago. She’s waiting to hear back, and she still has mornings where she thinks it’s a stupid idea. But she’s kept moving forward. Last time she was in my office, she grabbed a cherry lollipop from the jar on my desk on the way out, and said, “If I start now, I’ll be 27 when I graduate. If I wait five years, I’ll be 32 when I graduate, still just starting. At least this way I get there faster.” There’s no big graduation party to celebrate yet, no clear happy ending. Just a 24-year-old figuring out her timeline, on her own terms. And that’s exactly the right time for her.
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