Benjamin Franklin once said, “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” As many of us head toward retirement, good investments may be front of mind. Recent research seems to underscore that for those of us who were fortunate enough to invest in an education earlier in life, we may reap the rewards in our later years. But it’s also important to recognize that even at a later age, there are valuable reasons to continue your educational pursuits no matter what you achieved earlier in life.

First, consider a study recently published in Lancet Public Health. According to a meta-analysis of studies from around the world looking at the relationship between the number of years of education and mortality data, people with more years of formal schooling tend to die later than those who had less schooling. For every year of additional schooling, it appears your mortality risk is reduced by 2%. So, for example, if you finished high school and 4 years of college, you’ve lowered your risk of dying early by 34% compared to those who haven’t completed that level of schooling. In fact, less schooling may be a health hazard akin to smoking or excessively drinking alcohol. In essence, the amount of schooling you’ve achieved may directly correlate to your longevity, influencing such critical factors as where you live, the kind of work you do, the sufficiency of your resources to live a healthy and satisfying life, etc. Additional data from work by Princeton Professors Anne Case and Angus Deaton has documented that educational attainment causes a clear line between those who experience longevity in the United States and those whose life expectancy is considerably shorter, much of this attributable to the negative economic fall-out of not attaining a college degree.

Another new study out of Columbia University seems to provide more support for the effect of education on longevity. In fact, in research recently published in JAMA Network Open, using data from the Framingham Heart Study, researchers were able to determine that not only does education correlate with longevity, but that this longevity is the result of a slower pace of biological aging for those completing more education. The conclusion is that higher levels of education can help promote healthy longevity by directly influencing the process of our biological aging and mortality risks. In this study, two additional years of schooling correlated with a 2-3% slower pace of aging, measured by using a validated biological clock. While more evidence is needed to confirm these studies, the evidence is mounting that educational pursuits can have an extraordinary impact not only on your wealth of knowledge but on your actual mortality. For more on this study, crack open your textbook and read here and here. 

We’ve previously noted that even as an older adult, pursuing educational opportunities can have significant benefits for your brain health and cognitive functioning. In fact, it can be argued that pursuing educational ventures may be a great “post-retirement” investment! Whether it’s enhancing your “employability” for an encore career, increasing your opportunity to network socially, especially among younger adults, or just providing intellectual stimulation for sheer pleasure, returning to college (or even starting a program) might be one of the more enriching activities to pursue in retirement. For some schools that would welcome your application (often with no tuition), grab your backpack and click here and here. And to read some personal stories of older adults who took the plunge and returned to school, pull out your course catalog and look here and here.