Karen Mabry-Starks has simple advice for anyone considering enrolling in college.

The 51-year-old

Bethlehem Township, Pa.,

resident will graduate alongside 900 other students Thursday from

with an associate’s degree that is several decades in the making. The mother of five says her degree today is just the beginning of her delayed educational journey.

Mabry-Starks this fall begins the college’s two-year, registered nurse degree program and hopes to become a physician’s assistant.

But there was never a guarantee when she enrolled at 47 she’d be accepted into the popular nursing program. Almost 900 people applied for the fall 2012 program. Only 36 were accepted.

Mabry-Starks took a major risk by taking one or two courses a semester not knowing if at the end she had a seat in the nursing program, he said.

When Mabry-Starks enrolled at Northampton in 2008, she worked five days a week as an accounts payable bookkeeper in midtown Manhattan. She spent four hours a day on a bus.

She would take one or two night classes a semester. She’d step off the bus at 5:30 p.m., gobble down some food and rush to her three-hour class. Then she would hit the books until 2 in the morning.

She enrolled full-time in school after the company shuttered in September 2010 after months of her hours being cut back, Mabry-Starks said.

She kept up a 4.0 grade point average for much of school. Mabry-Starks admits her first “B” hurt but she’s still graduating with a 3.8 GPA, she said.

Mabry-Starks worried her devotion to her studies might alienate her from her husband, Kenneth Starks, and their children, who now range in age from 21 to 32. But instead they rallied around her.

They started helping with the cooking, urging her to head into her office to study and debating developmental psychology over dinner. It inspired her eldest daughter to enroll in college to get a nursing degree herself and her granddaughter considers school a way of life.

She credits her family, God and everyone she encountered at Northampton with her success.

Bartholomew never doubted Mabry-Starks had what it took to finish but he feared the obstacles life could throw in her way -- such as job loss and family illness.

Mabry-Starks wants other adults considering going back to college to know it is never too late.

Taking the plunge into school set off a domino effect of positive change in her life. Mabry-Starks joined the First Strides beginner running program and she now works out every day.

Aging is a freeing experience, she said. She no longer worries about money or other people's opinions. She’s hungry.