LETTER TO THE EDITOR: The value of a university education for the older adult students

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 16/07/2024 (741 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Increasingly, I have seen news media describing current-day retirements of older adults as offering unprecedented opportunities for purposeful passion and creativity in the second part of our lives. These ideas have always resonated strongly with me, particularly when I became a 63-year-old student at the University of Manitoba and graduated 4.5 years later with an honours BA in Sociology. The experience awakened me to the possibilities, and necessity, of intellectual pursuits as we age.

Society now needs to recognize the untapped potential of university students who are in this ‘second part’ of their lives. Yet universities primarily recruit the young perched on the threshold of their lives, marketing these institutions as a gateway to high-paying jobs and career opportunities found only with academic training and degrees. The intensity with which both students and universities pursue this goal appears to erode the pursuit of learning for its own sake. This love of learning and knowledge-gathering crafts critical thinking skills, as well as mindful reflection on our lives and how to become better citizens of the good society. John Dewey, an important educational philosopher of the 20th century, linked education to the survival of democracy. If global current events are any indication, learning must continue on throughout our lives, shielding us against disinformation and conspiracy theories weakening the fabric of our democracy.

It was John Dewey’s strong endorsement of this value and importance of a university education, that gave me the impetus to continue on in my university journey, despite encountering challenges tied to my age. My particular challenge was internalized ageism. Reflecting negative societal attitudes inward towards myself, I judged myself as a student, and continued to doubt the point of getting an academic degree at this stage of my life. Yet these feelings led me to research how other older students envisioned the value of a university education. I am currently a master’s student at the University of Manitoba, provided with a government grant that funds my research into the stories and experiences of older students in university.

This academic path has been a deeply moving and enlightening experience. I have discovered talents and abilities I did not know I had, developed skills and unearthed treasures which would have been lost, had I not gone to university. I am now 69 years old, conducting interviews for my thesis work where I am privileged to hear vital and important narratives and accounts of older adult university students, that will give us a better understanding of what it means to aspire to live a life to our fullest potential in academia, if we so wish, in contemporary times.

Universities can be leaders in tapping into the potential of a wider age-spectrum of students. I have a whole cohort of fellow older students in their 50s and beyond, who are full of passion and enthusiasm about learning and growing intellectually into old age. Their stories can be seen as history in the making, providing an important legacy of the value of academic learning for all ages.