Back in School Decades Later
The stories about older adults going back to school usually focus on people like Jim Kruger, a college dropout who, after retirement, worked his way up from a community college to a master’s degree in public policy and now at the age of 71 is on track to receive his doctorate by his next birthday.
Kruger’s experience is inspiring but not necessarily typical of returning learners, who increasingly have lots of options besides traditional degrees, such as certificate programs for specific skills.
“The environment today presents substantially more choice than we saw a decade ago,” says Rovy Branon, vice provost for the University of Washington Continuum College, which includes professional and continuing education. “The right education increasingly depends on the individual. For some, a graduate degree is the perfect accelerator into a final act of one’s career. On the other hand, certificates from reputable institutions can provide a shorter path to signal new and ongoing skills development.”
People go back to school for myriad reasons. They want a degree or the expertise to land a promotion or pay raise; they want to switch careers; they have been laid off and need to retrain; or after retiring, they want to return to work in a new field or fulfill a lifelong dream.
The number of older Americans enrolled in higher education is unclear because the statistics often don’t include nondegree programs or isolate 50-plus learners. But there’s a sense the number is growing.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, enrollment in degree-granting postsecondary institutions by students age 35 years and older increased 23% between 2000 and 2014 and is projected to rise 20% between 2014 and 2025. That anticipated
