Previous research (Richardson, 1994) held to the myth that older or nontraditional students are at a disadvantage when returning to a university. However, Hoskins and Newstead, (1997) reported that non-traditional students have a slight advantage over traditional students and are reported to obtain better degrees on the average than younger students. A summary of the literature on self-regulated learning and the non-traditional student indicated that the non-traditional student differs from the traditional student in goal orientation, motivation, and life experience. It is often life experience from which a student learns strategy use. Thus this research examined the specific differences between traditional and non-traditional students attending either a traditional university or a nontraditional university in an effort to determine how the structure of a campus can influence outcomes on the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ), an instrument that assesses college students' motivational orientations and their use of different learning strategies for a college course. (Contains 5 tables.)