In his recent application to be a student speaker at Western Governors University’s commencement, David Lavers worked hard to showcase himself, and he used age as a selling point: “At 71, I am typically older than my cohorts and most of my instructors.”
Lavers is part of a small-but-mighty group of retirees and near-retirees who believe that higher education — like youth — is wasted on the young. Each member of this cohort comes with a unique story and reason for starting or going back to school, be it finishing that long-delayed degree, learning a new skill or enhancing a fixed income with part-time work,
