First year mature age students’ motivations for university study

As access to higher education changes, so too does the student demographic. As such, there is a higher increase of mature age students accessing undergraduate degrees with numbers in Australian universities reported to be as high as approximately 40%. This paper reports on one part of a larger qualitative study that involved two interviews six months apart with nine participants from an Australian inner-city university. The larger study aimed to identify the strategies and resources that first year mature age students engage with that assist them during their education. Illuminated in this paper are the mature age students' motivations for study and how these differ and are influenced from a variety of references points. Interrelationships between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations are revealed in the data, providing insight into how higher education can move forward in understanding the study needs of this cohort of student.