This article describes and analyses the background and goals of students at the Finnish open university in the beginning of the twenty-first century. The material consists of statistics based on the student records of the Finnish open university in 2000 (n = 9080) and of the stories, educational autobiographies written by the adult learners (n = 106) at the open university. As a result of the quantitative analysis a "typical" student at the open university is female, age 25-30, unmarried, childless, working in a service occupation with rather low income, a secondary school graduate and living in a town in the south of Finland. On the basis of the autobiographies the students were classified into four types: (1) career orientated, (2) graduate orientated, (3) seekers of change, and (4) studying as a way of living (students). The quantitative and qualitative results have been synthesised and the results concern the purposes and functions of the open university and the meaning of lifelong learning in a risk society. (Contains 2 tables and 2 figures.)