By ANDREW YOUNG, education reporter, NZ Herald, 18 January 1999

For a shy student who dropped out of school after the fifth form, Dr Faye Davies is something of a dazzling late academic bloomer.

The 60-year-old left school at 16 because her younger sister needed the uniform, crushing early dreams of higher learning.

But in the past decade the super-gran has hit the textbooks with a vengeance, completing a bachelor of arts degree, a masters degree and a doctorate in Spanish.

Dr Davies is part of a surge in adult students heading to university under special admission provisions.

A national trend is for universities to become dominated by older people: from the workforce rather than young school leavers. [emphasis added]

Many of the older students are in Dr Davies' category - selected for special admission because they are over 20 with limited school qualifications but much potential

Auckland University figures show one in five new students are being admitted under special admission, up from one in 20 a decade ago. Arts courses are providing the biggest drawcard, with almost a third of students in that faculty entering under special admission.

Ten years ago Waikato University had 873 special admission students. That number has steadily risen to 1000 last year.

Dr Davies, from West Auckland, said she was under pressure to leave school early and get a job.

She was the eldest of five children in a household run by her divorced mother and money was scarce.

She took up nursing because it offered a chance to leave a crowded home and get her own room.

But by 1987, aged 48, she had decided to ditch her charge nurse position at Green Lane Hospital to fulfil her yearning to get a degree.

Her original goal was to spend three years on an arts degree in Spanish but the study bug bit deep and last year she gained her doctorate.

Since she began her studies, one adult son, a daughter and her brother have followed her lead into the ivory towers.