University Sponsored Adult Community Education: Exploring Motivations to Expand Diversity

Abstract

Community education offered by colleges and universities is an underexplored element of higher education. Community education includes non-credit and non-credentialing experiences that are offered by an institution for the benefit of the community. These courses, workshops, seminars, etc. can range from highly formal, such as adult basic education, to the highly informal, such as game nights in a college student center (Fletcher, 1989). The purpose of community education is the development of individuals in a community, whether to an expressed end or for the purpose of building human capital through socialization (Fletcher, 1989; Sole & Wilkins, 1976; Western et al, 2005).