Why more retirees in the US are going back to college

On a sweltering, 37.7 deg C morning in Tempe, Arizona, Mr Roger Weinreber made his way across the street from his apartment to the woodworking studio on the campus of Arizona State University.

- Sarah Bahr

“Hi, Roger!” said a young woman wearing a striped crop top and olive cargo shorts as he walked in. “Nice to see you!”

“Good to see you,” he replied. He set a black wire sculpture he had made down on a table covered with long brown boxes and orange and blue spring clamps.

A handful of the 11 students of the class had already gathered, and he walked around, chatting with them. But Mr Weinreber is not a student. He is their teaching assistant - who celebrated his 80th birthday.

“The students love Roger,” said Mr Damon McIntyre, an instructor for that morning’s advanced wood shop class, whom Mr Weinreber has worked with for the past 2 1/2 years. “He's such an asset.”

Mr Weinreber is one of 373 residents at Mirabella, a retirement community that opened at Arizona State in 2020.

They live in the heart of the campus in a 20-storey high-rise and take classes, attend athletic and performing arts events, sit on thesis committees and help international students practise their English skills.

For retirees, university retirement communities offer the option to indulge their passion for lifelong learning in an environment that allows for intergenerational interaction with younger students.

“It’s interesting to see their thought process, and to recognise the difference between my generation and subsequent generations,” said Mr Weinreber, who moved to Mirabella with his wife, Mrs Mary Weinreber, 80, in 2023.

“Things that I might take for granted, they look at and say, “What?”

Since the 1990s, at least 86 of these communities have opened across the United States, including the Village at Penn State in State College, Pennsylvania; University Commons at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor; and Vi at Palo Alto at Stanford University in California.