Maybe it's someone's idea of a dig? "Yes, she's still at University, at her old and decrepit age."

(I was an Older Than Average Student at my last Uni. I graduated when I was 28. Practically in my grave, I tell you.)

Maybe it was just the writer or editor with a misplaced sense of "We have to explain her age!" When really? No.

It's odd.

It's a standard term for someone doing a bachelors at her age, isn't it? I just don't understand why the student thing was worth mentioning.

It's a standard term for someone doing a bachelors at her age, isn't it?

It's not phrasing I would use (not that that means it isn't standard), but, yeah, why mention it at all? At any rate, not just me who thought it was odd, so I feel better now.

I haven't heard it, but it could ahve come into vogue after I left, or you know, in places outside of western Minnesota....

Well, rather than saying he knocked up a "co-ed" or whatever, which would sound sketch-o-rama. I mean, sketchier.

Mostly within the university world, I find students older than about 22 are called "non-traditional" students. That category also encompasses people going to school part-time while working, people who already have kids, etc., but it usually is meant to say "student is 45 and just sent her youngest off to join the Marines and is ready to see the world herself."

"non-traditional" is the term I am familiar with, as well

we called them "mature" students.

I had an 80 year old in some of my art classes at college. He'd been a sign painter all his life and was going back to get a fine arts degree.

That's definitely a "mature" student.