The Learning Society Forum: Why Longer Lives Are High Education's Untapped Strategic Advantage

Summary

The webinar presents “LifeCourse University,” a framework for treating longer lives as a strategic opportunity for higher education. Rather than focusing mainly on students in their late teens and early twenties, universities could help people launch careers, sustain them through change, and continue learning and contributing after a primary career.

Main ideas

• The traditional three-stage life model is outdated. The familiar sequence—education in early adulthood, a long career, then retirement focused on leisure—does not fit longer lives, multiple career transitions, or many people’s desire to keep learning and contributing.
• Longevity and technological change are converging. Longer lives are changing when people need to learn and contribute; AI and other technologies are changing what they need to know and do. Universities should consider these forces together rather than treating enrollment, AI, and lifelong learning as separate issues.
• Older adults are a resource, not only a population to serve. Experienced adults can be learners, mentors, volunteers, collaborators, and contributors to teaching and campus life. Their participation can benefit students, faculty, institutions, and communities.
• Intergenerational learning creates mutual value. One example is the Future Physicians Forum at ASU. Retired physicians at Mirabella at ASU help premed students practice communication and empathy, including in difficult clinical scenarios. One resident, Dr. Rich Kramer, helped establish the forum despite having no prior connection to ASU. Students set discussion priorities, and faculty eventually offered academic credit for participation.
• Universities already possess assets suited to this work. These include intellectually active campuses, faculty and student communities, alumni networks, social connections, and opportunities for belonging and contribution—not just courses and credentials.
• There is a strategic and financial case. Presenters point to a large population of college-educated adults over 55 and cite an AARP estimate of a $12.5 trillion market. They argue that relying on shrinking or contracting learner pipelines while overlooking adults’ learning needs and expertise is risky for higher education.
• The framework is an invitation, not a uniform institutional model. Universities should adapt it to their strengths, missions, and communities. It could apply to research universities, regional public universities, liberal arts colleges, community colleges, and other institutions.

The LifeCourse University framework

The framework connects three missions:

1. Career launch: Prepare people for work and ongoing learning, including the capabilities needed in an AI-driven world.
2. Career sustain: Help adults adapt, reskill, and renew their capabilities over longer working lives.
3. Post-career renewal: Support continued learning, purpose, belonging, and contribution beyond a primary career.

Co-generation connects these missions: people of different generations learn, work, and solve problems together, exchanging experience and skills.

How institutions can get started

The presenters identify three conditions for moving beyond small pilots:

• Strategic alignment: Connect life-course learning to the institution’s mission and priorities, building on what it already does well.
• Leadership support: Involve senior leaders who can bring different units together around a shared approach.
• Systems for innovation: Provide funding, incentives, and structures to experiment, evaluate results, and scale successful models.

The brief points to midlife transition programs, co-generation initiatives, and university retirement communities as promising approaches, while emphasizing that these are only some of the possibilities.

The framework also asks institutions to consider three fundamental questions:

• Whom do we serve? Only people at the beginning of adulthood, or learners across the life course?
• How can people learn and contribute? What becomes possible when generations learn and work together?
• What role should universities play? How should they respond as longer lives and AI reshape society?

Commentators’ considerations and discussion themes

James DeVaney supports the vision while raising questions about how to make it more inclusive and durable:

• Should opportunities be organized around individual universities or networks of institutions that let people access distinctive offerings across campuses?
• How can institutions collaborate without simply copying one another and losing their distinctive strengths?
• How can programs serve people whose talents were overlooked earlier in life, or who discover new ambitions later?
• What public policies and financing would make participation broadly accessible, including for institutions with fewer resources?
• Should institutions design around people’s life transitions and aspirations, rather than simply opening existing programs to older learners?
• How can promising initiatives avoid “pilot purgatory” and become lasting commitments?

Paul Irving emphasizes the economic and societal pressures behind the opportunity: population aging, enrollment challenges, changing careers, and AI-related disruption. He argues that universities should become learning ecosystems connected to communities and employers, rather than limiting their role to knowledge delivery within campus walls. He also calls for partnerships with employers and alternative learning providers, and for faculty engagement in rethinking traditional assumptions.

The discussion further highlights that:

• Career coaching and encore careers can connect lifelong learning with new forms of paid work, community contribution, and social connection.
• Universities could work with employers to support desirable transitions out of long-term roles and help workers explore what comes next.
• Learning programs should be democratized, rather than primarily serving people who are already well educated, socially connected, or financially secure. Universities could also connect more- and less-educated adults in ways that expand social capital and opportunity.
• Institutions should engage with the growing corporate and non-university learning sector, potentially through partnerships, rather than assume universities will retain their position by default.
• Engagement and experience may matter as much as credentials, especially for post-career learners.
• Alumni associations and development offices may offer practical starting points, while faculty education and institutional culture are important to broader adoption.

Speakers and sources featured

Webinar speakers

• Mitchell Stevens — Moderator; sociologist at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education and co-convener of Learning Society.
• Lindsey Beagley — Executive director of longevity innovation at Arizona State University Enterprise Partners; co-author and presenter.
• Simon Chan — Global ambassador for the Stanford Center on Longevity and senior fellow at CoGenerate; co-author and presenter.
• James DeVaney — Associate vice provost for academic innovation at the University of Michigan; commentator.
• Paul Irving — Senior adviser at the Milken Institute and senior fellow at USC’s Leonard Davis School of Gerontology; commentator.

People and sources referenced

• Dr. Rich Kramer and the Future Physicians Forum at ASU; the forum involves residents of Mirabella at ASU and premed students.
• John Scrretty and Mary Walshok, authors of the related “Dual Speed University” brief at UC San Diego.
• The “LifeCourse University” brief, presented by Beagley and Chan.
• The Stanford Center on Longevity’s “New Map of Life.”
• AARP, cited for a market estimate concerning older adults.
• Vivek Murthy and “Bowling Alone,” mentioned in a discussion of social connection and loneliness.
• Judah/Judith (name unclear in the auto-generated subtitles), who asked about career coaching for encore careers.
• Peter Besus, who asked about links between corporate and non-university learning and the framework.
• John Scrretty, who asked how the framework might work across different types of higher-education institutions.
• Trish (surname not given), whose question prompted discussion of access for people without college degrees.
• Mark Friedman, mentioned in connection with alumni engagement but not a speaker in the excerpt.