Tim Baker, writing for Thrillist (2016):
Unlike the first time around at college, staying home to read a book as an adult inspires neither guilt nor FOMO -- it's actually quite pleasant. This is one of the many advantages of being an older student. It’s actually been shown that more mature students do better in school. Researchers in Canada performed an extensive study of community college students, and their findings suggested that mature college students (those over 25) actually performed better on their final exams (on average six to seven points higher) than their younger counterparts.
This is promising. I remember the older and second career students when I was in undergraduate always being top performers. They were more focused and usually the leaders of any group projects.
One of the great things about heading back to college for a second degree or certificate is that the rewards are immediate and tangible. Your first time around, it’s not always clear what the long-term rewards of struggling through statistics are. But when you know that the stats you learn may be the way to escape from a less-than-ideal work situation, it’s a lot easier to dedicate yourself to mastering the skills required.
This is something I’ve thought a lot about. When I was 20, I had no idea what I was working towards. I was taking random classes like economics, art history, management information systems, statistics, and microbiology with no clear end goal in mind. I was a business major. What did I need to ace microbiology for? Well, had I known that 10 years later that C in microbiology would affect my chances of getting into a post-bac and PA school, I would have tried a little harder.