DES MOINES, Iowa — Dorothy Frode enrolled in community college this fall, 50 years after she graduated from high school and facing the certainty that retirement wasn’t possible with only her Social Security income.
At age 67, the Dubuque, Iowa, woman made a choice likely becoming more common among older Americans: to return to college for more training, then seek jobs they intend to hold into their 70s or beyond.
“I have bills to pay. The lights, the gas, everything that everyone else has to pay,” Frode says. “I didn’t have enough money.”
According to the Iowa Department of Education, enrollment by students 55 and older at Iowa’s community colleges has increased by 300 students in 2010, to 1,661. That’s a rise of 24 percent over 2009.
They’re majoring in education and training, business, health science and information technology — all sectors that have been hiring.
“The fact that they’re registering majors indicates they are trying to achieve something,” says department researcher Tom Schenk. “If you’re going back to community college and just doing leisure, that won’t show up in those numbers. Those are noncredit enrollments, like the basket weaving kind of classes.”
The increased enrollment comes as Americans 55 or older comprise a larger share of the labor force — up to 19 percent in 2009, according to a report by the nonprofit Urban Institute. That’s the highest rate for older workers since the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics started tracking the data in 1948.
