Education Information for Seniors

Many older boomers and seniors are looking forward towards retiring and going back to school. Some wish to get the degree they never had an opportunity to earn when they were younger, but most just want to stimulate their minds and learn about those areas that have always been interesting to them.

Auditing Classes

A number of colleges and universities allow seniors to audit classes at a nominal charge or at no cost at all. More and more retirees are taking advantage of these programs. Some universities have had to cap the number of auditing students to keep from flooding popular classes. A growing number of retirement communities have negotiated arrangements with nearby campuses as one of the benefits of living there.

Some of the larger programs include Boston University, where more than one thousand seniors a year audit classes through their Evergreen program. Seniors pay $50 a course. Colleges like Pomona and Penn State offer seniors the opportunity to audit classes free, while the University of Washington charges $5 per course. Some states like Minnesota and Virginia require in-state universities to allow seniors to audit classes.

Allowing seniors to audit classes is a win/win for both parties. Many seniors make financial gifts and some include the college in their wills. It is also excellent PR and helps to better integrate the college into the surrounding community in addition to providing an excellent marketing tool.

For a partial list of colleges and universities that allow auditing of classes go to http://www.google.com and enter “audit classes” in the advanced search box.

In addition to being able to audit classes where no college credit is given, many seniors are continuing their education at on-line schools. Below is a list of the top 10 by size:

University of Phoenix, AIU Online, Kaplan College Online, Devry, Ellis MBA, Keiser College, Keller. Capella University, University of Cincinnati Online, Strayer University.

You can reach these schools directly or go to http://www.retiredbrains.com/Education/Index/ and search by, industry, program or state for the schools the best match your area of interest. This site also gives a brief description of the schools as well as a complete alphabetized listing of schools and the degrees they offer (Associates, Bachelors, Masters, Diploma, Certificate) with links to each.

Below is a list of some of the programs offered:

Accounting

Administrative Assistant

Air Conditioning, Refrigeration and Heating

Architecture and Drafting

Business Administration

Business Applications

Cisco Certification

Information Technology Certification

Information Technology Management

Law Enforcement, Security and Criminal Justice

Legal Services

Maintenance and Repair

Management

Marketing and Advertising

Medical Billing and Coding

Medical Technologist

Microsoft Certification

Network Administration

Network Security

Network Technology

Nursing

Oracle

Personal Care Services

Trades

Transportation and Heavy Equipment Training

Travel and Tourism

Web Design

A number of colleges and universities allow seniors to audit classes at a nominal charge or at no cost at all. More and more retirees are taking advantage of these programs. Some universities have had to cap the number of retirees from flooding popular classes. A growing number of retirement communities have negotiated arrangements with nearby campuses as one of the benefits of living there.

Some of the larger programs include Boston University where more than 1000 seniors a year audit classes through their Evergreen program. Seniors pay $50 a course. Colleges like Pomona and Penn State offer seniors the opportunity to audit classes free while the University of Washington charges $5 per course. Some states like Minnesota and Virginia are legally required to allow seniors to audit classes.

Allowing seniors to audit classes is a win win for both parties. As a result many seniors make financial gifts and some include colleges in their wills. It is also excellent PR and helps to better integrate the college into the surrounding community in addition to providing an excellent marketing tool.

For a partial list of colleges and universities that allow auditing of classes go to http://www.google.com and enter "audit classes" in the advanced search box

Learn on-line

Following the lead of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other highly competitive schools, more institutions are posting online everything from lecture notes to sample tests, and even making audio and video files of actual lectures publicly available. The sites attract anywhere from thousands to more than one million unique visitors each month.

The moves -- which differ from the "distance learning" courses that many schools offer for credit and charge for -- come as colleges and universities say they want to democratize education, making the best resources available to more people. But they also hope that it leads to more interest from potential applicants and inspires alumni in far-flung locales to make a donation.

MIT's pioneering "OpenCourseWare" program, which was launched in 2003, posts the syllabus and class notes for more than 1,500 courses online for anyone who wants them. Later it aims to publish materials from virtually all 1,800 of its courses across all its schools.

The University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., offers eight courses, from Introduction to Philosophy to African American History, and including everything from class plans, links to required readings, lecture notes and homework assignments. The school aims to increase the number of classes offered online to 30 courses over the next two years.

YaleUniversity, meanwhile, has announced it will produce digital videos of undergraduate lecture classes and make them available free to the public. This academic year, it is taping seven classes -- from Introduction to the Old Testament to Fundamentals of Physics –

Some smaller liberal-arts schools are following suit. Bryn Mawr College, a women's school in Pennsylvania, is in the process of selecting course materials to post online, free to the public, beginning this summer. It plans to include classes ranging from psychology and physics to one on the history of Philadelphia.

Some schools that follow the MIT model are focused on making available as many course materials as possible -- including class plans, lecture notes, lists of reading materials and even homework. Other schools, including University of California, Berkeley, are simply making lectures available through audio and video files. In MIT's Introduction to Modeling and Simulation, a science and engineering class, Web surfers can browse through assignments and sample quizzes, as well as suggested project ideas. As with other MIT courses, the syllabus is posted -- so you can see the structure of the course and what text and other reading materials are used -- but only some lecture notes are available.

Universities say they don't worry about losing applicants by giving away materials online. "From Yale's point of view, there still is nothing more important than direct interaction between students and teachers," says Diana E.E. Kleiner, an art-history professor and director of the Yale project. "Putting a selection of our courses online doesn't change that."

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