College student demographic changing
Published 10:49 am Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Jason Mark of Niles was laid off from his job at Keystone RV in Goshen in 2008. After looking for work for several month, the 33-year-old went back to school at Southwestern Michigan College. The school has seen a 14 percent increase in enrollment of adult learners in the past three years, many of them unemployed or underemployed. (Daily Star Photo/AARON MUELLER)
By AARON MUELLER
Niles Daily Star
When Jason Mark was laid off from Keystone RV in August 2008, he didn’t know what to do.
He scanned the newspapers for jobs unsuccessfully for several months when he came across an ad for the Michigan Works fast track career program.
The 33-year-old Niles resident was unsure at first about going back to the classroom, but the fact that financial aid covered all of his school costs at Southwestern Michigan College made it a no-brainer in his mind.
“My time is the only thing I’m paying, which is well worth it in my mind,” he said.
Time was something Mark could certainly afford to invest, as he was quickly getting jittery being around the house all day.
“I’ve been laid off so long, I’m getting bored,” he said. “I’m used to working 40 hours a week and now I’m working like 10-20.”
Mark, who used to work as an electrician, is in a general contractors program, which he says has taught him everything he needs to know about building a house.
“It gets you ready,” he said. “We’ve done everything from leveling a site to doing the foundations, everything to do with a house, from the ground up.”
He smiles as he talks about the program that actually paid him $10 an hour the first semester to go to class and participate in the building activities.
But Mark won’t deny he was anxious on his first day back in the classroom in more than a decade.
“The first day of class everybody was kind of nervous, kind of like ‘what’s going on?'” Mark said. “And then people saw that there were a lot of older people in there and it kind of relaxed everybody. Everybody started mingling and of course meeting and greeting with people, finding out each other’s situations and stuff and a lot of people are in the same boat.”
Mark said more than half of the students in his classes are adult learners, which is comforting for him to know that he is not alone.
Last week the Star reported SMC has seen a 14 percent increase in students over age 25 in the past three years. The 1,231 non-traditional students at the college account for more than 40 percent of the school’s total enrollment.
Mark said balancing schoolwork and the odd jobs he works has not been an issue.
“They pretty much place the school work so where people who are working can still work and go to school,” he said. “I’m not having too much of a problem with the work load. I’ve built myself a schedule.”
But Mark is looking forward to the day he wakes up to go to work and not to the classroom, which may not be too far away. He only has a few more months in his last semester of the program and then he will take the general contractors test. His goal is to one day have his own business.
“I’m definitely excited to get back out there,” he said. “My unemployment barely gets me by. But you have to stay positive. It has to get better.”