A new semester at George Mason University is full of hope. Students may be turning over a new leaf or embarking on a new living arrangement or a new major. Anything is possible.

As predictable as the sense of infinite possibilities, though, is the anxiety of returning students. Some have been away from school only a semester or two, but some return after a decade or two. Those mature students have never achieved their degrees for a range of reasons: They were in the military, raising families or working long hours.