Picture college life: Lots of 18- to 24-year-olds mingling on a verdant university campus. Football Saturdays. Fraternity and sorority dances.

      Now think again: 45-year-olds with full-time jobs and full-time families, squeezing classes in between work and picking up children from soccer games.

      As the children of baby boomers flood the nation's colleges and universities, many of their parents are going back to school, too.

      For some, it is the training that will move them to the next rung of the corporate ladder. For others, it is finishing the degrees that were interrupted by life.

      And for still others, it is a decision to leave behind one career to find one that is more fulfilling.

      Education is no longer just for the fresh-faced kids right out of high school.

      According to figures from the National Center for Education Statistics, in the fall of 2000 about 15.1 million people were enrolled in the nation's colleges and universities. Almost half of them were students over the age of 21. The over-40 group accounted for about 15 percent of that total.

      Colleges and universities are reshaping their programs to tap into what many believe will be a growing market. In some cases, master's degree programs may not require a thesis, or students' work experience is considered in the admissions process. At the very least, classes are usually scheduled in the evenings or weekends to accommodate working adults.

      "We know that today's world requires people to be lifelong learners, but many cannot be expected to drop everything to go back to school,'' said Poza, marketing director of Barry University's Andreas School of Business.

      "There are some unique challenges to starting back to school,'' he said. "It's been awhile since most of us have been involved in this kind of work, but at the same time, we are more focused and committed to our classes.''

      Barry's classes are offered in the evenings and Saturdays, and students can complete the program in less than two years, depending on how many courses they take. And several other schools, such Florida Atlantic and Florida International universities, have launched advertising campaigns to attract adult students to campus.

      "What we try to do is meet whatever demand for training or class work that exists in the community and fits with our mission,'' said Lori Serure, the department's marketing director. "That may mean classes on the weekend or some place other than campus or classes that are condensed into a shorter time frame.''

      Some students want to make a complete career change.

That's where schools like Johnson & Wales University, a Rhode Island-based college that bills itself as America's Career University, step in.

      Ned Warner, a 43-year-old former television cameraman from Orlando, realized a couple of years ago that he was becoming burned out on the grind of daily news.

      Combined with nagging shoulder problems, Warner realized that his first career was coming to end.

      "For a while I had been thinking about cooking; I had always enjoyed it and wondered if I could make a career at it,'' Warner said.

      So he took the leap this spring, quit his job and enrolled in one of Johnson & Wales' culinary programs. His already considerable cooking skills meant that he could enroll in a degree program designed for experienced food service professionals.

      Warner attends classes in North Miami during the week, bunking with family in the area, and goes home to his wife and two children in Orlando on the weekends. He expects to complete the program, which culminates in an Associate of Arts degree, in March.

      "There is a little fear when you first start considering making this kind of life change, but once you get into it, you get beyond that.''

      Zoraya Suarez, spokeswoman for Johnson & Wales, said the school's culinary and hospitality programs frequently attract adult students.

      "We have people who are doctors and lawyers who decide they don't want to spend the second halves of their lives doing what they did for the first 20 years,'' Suarez said. "Or they realize that after years in the industry, they need that degree to move on to the next level.''

      The distractions that he experienced as a student at Florida State and Syracuse universities 20-plus years ago don't exist now, Warner said.

      "It's your money now and your time, so you are more focused,'' he said, adding that his typical evening after classes consists of fixing a meal, taking in a cooking show or two, studying and then off to bed.

      Warner says eventually he would like to open a restaurant of his own — a neighborhood gathering place, he says, that serves just "really good food.''

      He has no regrets about his decision.

      "My instructors here at Johnson & Wales really know what will be expected of us when we enter into the working world and they expect us to be prepared,'' said Warner, who hopes to land a job in one of Orlando's numerous hotel restaurants.

      Warner said he was concerned for a while about being able to afford to do something different.

      He said he now realizes that he had been moving in this direction for a while.

      "When I was cooking at home, dicing vegetables, I would think about whether my cuts would pass professional standards,'' Warner said. "You know — 'I think this one is too chunky , this one, too small.'"

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