How Working Adults Persist in Graduate Education: Co-Regulation, Self-Monitoring, and Long-Term Engagement

Background: Working adults pursuing graduate education must sustain learning across extended timelines while navigating professional, family, and identity demands. Adult learning theory suggests that persistence depends on learners’ capacity for self-regulation, yet little empirical work has examined how institutional structures shape this process over multi-year trajectories. Methods: We examined a longitudinal learner-tracking and advising system implemented across three certificate and three degree programs in graduate health professions education (HPE). The system combined individualized programs of study, structured semester check-ins, quarterly program-level reviews, and annual progress meetings. Using a longitudinal single-site case design, we analyzed learner interviews, program records, and certificate-to-degree transitions from 2018 to 2024 to examine how these structures were enacted and experienced over time. Results: Among the 574 enrolled learners, 568 completed a certificate or degree, and 54% of certificate learners later enrolled in a degree program. Interview data indicated that learners used shared planning tools and advising interactions to clarify goals, monitor progress, and renegotiate timelines when life circumstances changed. Learners described reduced uncertainty, greater sense of control, and sustained engagement despite competing professional and personal demands. Conclusions: This longitudinal case illustrates how institutionalized co-regulation can function as an externalized infrastructure for self-regulation in adult graduate education. By making goals, progress, and adaptation visible and shared, programs can support learners in sustaining engagement across long, disruption-prone trajectories without framing persistence as a purely individual responsibility.