ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Thursday, October 17, 1996             TAG: 9610170059
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL   PAGE: A-4  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Associated Press

MORE OLDER STUDENTS ON CAMPUS

As baby boomers age and the work force changes, more and more Americans over 40 are going to college.

Just 477,000 people older than 40 were in college in 1970. By 1993, that number had more than tripled, to more than 1.6 million, according to a study released Wednesday.

That's partly due to aging baby boomers. People over 40 made up 36 percent of the U.S. population in 1970 but 40 percent in 1995, according to the study, which relied on census figures.

``By sheer numbers, the baby boomers are revolutionizing our educational worlds, as they've been doing all along,'' said Ted Freeman, president of the Education Resources Institute, which co-sponsored the study.

But demographic shifts cannot explain the entire boom in older students, said Jamie Merisotis, president of the Institute for Higher Education Policy, the other co-sponsor.

``People over the age of 40 are going back to college to be retrained,'' he said. ``Lifelong learning is becoming a reality for Americans.''

Two-thirds of the older students are women, and some have returned to school after a divorce or after their children have gotten older, giving them time to develop a career, he said. Others are just looking for a career change or trying to keep up with a competitive marketplace.

In fact, more and more students are studying at corporate universities. There were about 400 of these employer-sponsored schools in the 1970s; now, there are more than 1,000.

Other findings:

* Students age 40 and over make up 10 percent of undergraduates, 22 percent of graduate students and 6 percent of students in medical, law or other professional programs.

* Most older undergraduates are white (82 percent) and married (59 percent).

* Older students do better, with 44 percent reporting ``mostly A's'' in their course work (compared with 9 percent of 18- to 24-year olds), but it takes them longer to finish.

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