Universities see increased enrollment of older students

For 68-year-old UNC student Douglas Longman, a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree and a doctoral degree from Indiana University just weren’t enough.

Longman said he just loves to learn.

He has been taking a variety of classes at UNC for the past 10 years and joins a growing set of older people returning to school.

It has become more common in recent years for older students to attend colleges and universities nationwide, according to a recent study by the National Center for Education Statistics.

Non-traditional students return to school for various reasons, ranging from the desire for a new start after the economic downturn to a pure love of learning.

The study reported that the number of students aged 40 years and older was 535,446 in the nation — 31, 759 more than the calculated number in 2007.

“Changes in the economy certainly are a major factor,” said Ashley Memory, spokeswoman for the UNC Office of Undergraduate Admissions.

“People are trying to acquire new skills to allow them to be competitive in the job market, and education is certainly the place to start.”

Increasingly, more students are transferring to UNC from community colleges, she said.

For the past three years, more than 20 percent of UNC’s enrolling transfer students have been more than 22 years old, she said.

But while nationwide enrollment numbers of non-traditional students have increased, statistics show the enrollment at UNC has not changed much.

Students are more likely to go to purely career-oriented schools that directly prepare them for jobs, rather than to a residential university like UNC, said Ralph Byrns, an economics professor at the University.

During the past 10 years, about 2 to 3 percent of the students in Byrns’ classes have been older than college-aged, he said.

“There definitely has been for the last 40 years or so a tendency for students to return to college during economic downturns,” he said.

While the economy might not be attracting more older students to UNC, many are enrolling for other reasons — even if they already have a college degree.

Some older students like Longman enjoy taking classes for the sake of learning.

“With a masters and doctoral degree already in my pocket, I didn’t have to worry about getting my ticket punched,” Longman said.

He currently teaches in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Duke University, which offers a wide array of courses, both on and off campus, for retired people.

It is a different environment, Longman said, since these students have years of experience and are more than willing to speak up and challenge teachers.

Duke’s program has grown significantly during the past several years and now has almost 1,600 members, said program director Garry Crites.

It offers between 85 and 110 classes, most of which are similar to traditional university courses, in each of its three semesters.

Many who retire in the Triangle area have been involved in education, business, medicine or government and want to continue to study, Crites said.

“I enjoy sitting in classes with people who frankly are the age of my grandson,” Longman said.

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