The current data on the incidence and predilections of adult students fall into "good news" and "bad news" categories for educators in the humanities. The good news begins with the sheer numbers of potential adult students. In 1975, about 17 million adults were engaged in continuing education, and this figure has probably increased dramatically since then. Adult students also tend to be more highly motivated than college students of traditional ages. Although adult students' pragmatism is part of the bad news, this characteristic can be turned to good account. Young adults are more concerned with "practical" courses to help them with career preparation, job advancement, their interests in hobbies and recreations, and home/family living; they are not sensitive to what the humanities may hold for them. Adults at age forty-five and beyond show interest in the humanities for personal satisfaction and cultural enrichment increases. For these older students, who seek a synthesis of what they know, what they are learning, and how they will live, the interdisciplinary approach to education satisfies both the short-range goals upon which they insist and the long-range goals toward which educators strive. So humanities instructors should stop thinking about interdisciplinary studies as a dilution of essence and begin to think of such an approach as the essence of education itself. (RL)