5 Colleges Helping Seniors Start New Careers

Stay and study — and continue to learn. That’s the best way it’s for lots of oldsters, even after they’ve moved on from their careers and transfer into their 50s, 60s and past.

Perhaps it’s to achieve new data and expertise to discover a extra rewarding job or profession, or perhaps it’s simply to study new issues and make new connections.

Regardless of the motivation, there are increasingly faculties and universities creating applications particularly suited to these later learners. They’re usually as much as a 12 months in size, with myriad alternatives to take all kinds of school programs, work together with cohorts and have interaction with school.

Right here’s a take a look at a few of the extra established applications throughout the U.S., adopted by a pair extra choices if any such program isn’t for you.

1. College of Connecticut

Encore!Connecticut helps professionals within the company and public sectors transition to nonprofits with full-time jobs, part-time jobs or volunteer positions.

This system consists of 40 hours of training in lots of points of nonprofit work, together with program administration, funding methods and governance.

The autumn program begins Sept. 9, 2023, and the schooling price is $2,950. Purposes are accepted on a rolling foundation, and scholarships can be found. To study extra and apply, go to the Encore!Connecticut website.

2. Stanford College

The Distinguished Careers Institute goals to assist seniors “renew their goal, construct neighborhood, and recalibrate wellness.”

DCI fellows take part in four academic quarters with programs obtainable in humanities, enterprise, the setting and plenty of extra areas, relying on the “purpose pathway” {that a} fellow chooses.

The applying interval for the DCI Class of 2024 will open in September 2023. Candidates with careers within the public sector, “together with the army, public training, the humanities, or associated fields,” could also be eligible for monetary help.

3. Harvard College

By interdisciplinary educational studying, management growth and peer-to-peer collaboration, fellows within the Advanced Leadership Institute examine for a 12 months “to develop a social influence technique targeted on their problem of selection.”

That technique may take the type of a program, a corporation, a basis, a marketing campaign for a trigger or public workplace. This system runs January by December and prices the identical as a 12 months of graduate faculty, which for 2022-23 was $52,456. Monetary help could also be obtainable for these with a full profession in authorities, nonprofit or army service.

4. College of Texas at Austin

Within the year-long Tower Fellows program, fellows take as much as 4 programs per semester, have behind-the-scenes entry to campus museums, analysis collections and libraries, and join with professors and alumni.

This system is designed to assist midlife staff plan their subsequent life’s section. You can begin this system in both fall or spring, with admissions carried out on a rolling foundation, and it prices $60,000.

5. College of Notre Dame

The Inspired Leadership Initiative helps folks grow to be a “power for good of their communities” within the subsequent section of their lives.

Members take lessons for an educational 12 months with a curriculum tailor-made to the person ILI member. If chosen, individuals start this system in August. The fee for these beginning in 2023 is $58,000.

Lifelong studying applications

If the distinguished — and costly — applications we’ve already mentioned aren’t what you’re searching for, many colleges additionally provide extra reasonably priced lifelong studying applications.

As an illustration, Aquinas Faculty, a liberal arts school in Grand Rapids, Michigan, provides the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, with its mission “to foster accessible lifelong studying, particular person progress, and social connection for learners age 50+.”

The tutorial 12 months goes from September by June and lessons, that are normally just one or two days in size, price both $14 or $17 every, relying in your paid membership level. Scholarships can be found.

That’s simply one among 125 Osher Lifelong Studying Institute applications throughout the nation, and there’s “appreciable variation” between applications at totally different faculties, the Osher Foundation says.

CoGenerate

Not an academic establishment, this nonprofit group matches seasoned professionals with social influence organizations with the concept that older and youthful generations working collectively might be higher in a position to clear up a few of society’s hardest issues.

Encore Fellows obtain a $25,000 stipend for one 12 months of usually part-time work. You possibly can apply by CoGenerate’s website, however word that there are totally different software types relying on the area you reside in.