Making the Case for Age-Diverse Universities

Life expectancy has increased substantially; yet universities remain age-segregated and fail to educate people across the longer life course. Demographic shifts call for universities to change their orientation toward age and life course. Arguments as to why universities should serve students of all ages and operate as age-diverse communities include: Ensuring the capacity of individual workers and the labor force; educating people to succeed in age-diverse settings; producing innovation in an aging society; supporting meaningful engagement, social connection, and cognitive health into later life; and ensuring the supply of students. Conceptual foundations for these arguments derive from ideas about age stratification, where chronological age is used as a criterion for inclusion or exclusion from social expectations, roles, and privileges and where age integration is viewed as a positive alternative. In response to population aging and the constraints associated with age segregation in higher education, the Age-Friendly University Global Network was formed to increase the inclusion of older learners in all aspects of university life. The challenge is to create conditions where nontraditionally aged students expect to engage fully in educational activities, where students of all ages are valued and supported, and where age diversity is a common feature of campus life. The transformation of our universities must be done for the sake of society, for younger and older people, and for the self-interest of institutions themselves.