A changing landscape: the 24-hour university?

 (T-shirt design, above, available at Threadless.)

Would you sign up for English Composition 200 held Wednesday nights from 10:00pm-11:45pm?

How about Psychology 101, beginning at midnight and stretching until 2:00am? 

Access for students in higher education has been extended in very real ways: community colleges around the country are offering courses that start as late as midnight, and end as late as 2am.

No surprise here: Community colleges around the country are experiencing booms in enrollment during these tough economic times, according to a recent article in the New York Times.  An emerging coping method with these bloated enrollment figures is to offer courses outside standard times, including both late-night and early morning courses (some beginning around 6am!)

What do these late-night courses present as considerations for our higher educational climate?

• They provide access to courses for students who work atypical hours, live alternative lifestyles, or plainly prefer nighttime hours,
  
  
• They accommodate instructors who fall in the same categories,
  
  
• They make a call for late-hour student services (tutoring services, parking monitors, safety officers, academic advisors, finance advisors, veterans' services, resource centers, libraries, etc.) on campuses,
  
  
• They make a case for additional support around key student health issues (like over-taxing it, developing harmful drug dependencies, or getting inadequate sleep),
  
  
• A furthering of our climate of open access and convenience,
  
  
• Additional commodification of formal education.
  

The question that invariably comes up is, when, if ever, do we learn best? And, do we all learn around the same times? There's something to be said for circadian rhythms, and wakefulness, but I'm no neuroscientist and I'm not going to delve into that debate just yet.

One thing I do know, however, is that adult students (and arguably all learners) learn best when their stress levels are low.

I hypothesize: for students who experience above average stress in a later night course (for whatever reason), a late-night course offering can be detrimental to overall learning regardless of perceived convenience.

However, for students who actually experience lower levels of stress in a later night course, these midnight showings may very well be an optimal choice.