ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the implications of emerging adulthood for campus life programs in student affairs and recommends how student affairs professionals might use this framework to inform their practice in a variety of functional areas. The discussion about the college debt and employment prospects complicates the journey to financial independence for many. Emerging adulthood, with its focus on ages 18–29, clearly overlaps with a majority of "traditional aged" college students, especially those most likely to be engaged in typical student affairs functions, including residence life, student conduct, orientation, campus activities, and alcohol education. The scholarship on emerging adulthood raises a plethora of compelling issues and questions for the priorities of campus life programs. While students' social context including families, peer groups, communities, and personal characteristics affect their pathways to adulthood, planning and programming should still be framed around the three criteria for adulthood: accepting responsibility for oneself, making independent decisions, and becoming financially independent.
