It’s Our Time!
Women 50 & Beyond Need Our Own Mature-Age College Pathway
Older women in Australia, the UK and the US came of age when women had limited access to higher education (thus limiting our access to higher paid careers). Providing a ready pathway to complete our education could address the financial and social challenges we now face.
How We Got Here
It took from the 1960s to 2024 for women to go from 27 percent of the university student population in Australia, 25 percent in the UK, and 35 percent in the US, to Australian female students being 62 percent of the commencing Australian cohort, 57 percent of all students in the UK, and 57 percent of all students in the US.
So how did this happen? And what do we want now? Let’s begin with what facilitated the rise of female university students through the decades.
The 1960s
In the 1960s, marriage was the most common life pathway for young women. University was not top of mind. Women married early, had children, left work and became full-time mothers. If women had dreams of attending university, they were put on hold until the children were in their late teens, and then possibly postponed again to help care for grandchildren. By this time, many women were in their fifties or beyond.
The 1970s
Australia
In 1973, the Australian Whitlam Labour government abolished university fees and introduced a living allowance. This landmark combination brought about significant changes. University participation accelerated across all age groups and encouraged greater enrollment of women in their thirties through their sixties. By 1980, women were 44 percent of bachelor enrollments. I was forty-two when I enrolled at university via the Tertiary Admissions Examination in 1982.
United Kingdom
Returning to education as an adult was a catalyst for women’s social mobility in the 1970s in the UK. Many women who left school in the 1940s at age 15 or 16 chose to return to study and gain qualifications in later life. Between 1972 and 1975, the number of women new entrants to university grew by 28 percent; the percentage of female undergraduate new entrants was 36 percent compared to 64 percent for males.
United States
In 1972, President Richard Nixon signed Title IX of the Education Act into law. It was designed to protect all students and staff from discrimination based on their sex. This legislation opened the door for women to have more opportunities to play college sports, to earn university degrees, to be eligible for more financial support and to have a choice regarding the subjects they studied. The total enrollment of women in the US in the 1970s was 42 percent.
The 1980s & 1990s
Australia
By 1991, 55 percent of all university students in Australia were women, and in the over-35 age group, Australian women outnumbered men nationally by almost two to one. The shift in nursing and education from vocational training to university training was a contributing factor. This began in 1973 and continued throughout the 1980s. By 1993, all nursing students entered the sector via university training.
United Kingdom
In 1990, 34,000 women graduated from UK universities, compared with 43,000 men. But throughout the 1990s, women took the greatest advantage of the rapid expansion in university numbers, and by 2000 the position was reversed, with 133,000 women graduating, compared to 110,000 men. Furthermore, the teaching profession, in which most secondary school teachers were male up until the early 1990s, became increasingly female.
United States
Between 1976 and 1987, females and males in the US were equally likely to enroll in college in the fall following high school graduation. However, from the late 1980s, women were slightly more likely than men to do so. In 1991-92, women were about three times as likely as men to graduate with degrees in education. Women were also more likely than men to major in English, modern foreign languages, communications, psychology, and the health sciences. More men were enrolled in pre-professional programs, such as medicine, law or dentistry. These are prestigious degrees in which graduates earn the highest salaries upon graduation.
Female Students 2000 & Beyond
Australia
While Australian female students made up 62 percent of the commencing domestic cohort in 2024, it was between 2003 and 2017 that the number of women over 40 enrolled at Australian universities grew from 54,800 to 85,400, outnumbering men two to one. Of these, almost 2,500 were over the age of 65.
United Kingdom
While 57 percent of students in higher education in the UK in 2023/24 were female, the only statistic I could find regarding older-aged students was that 15 percent of female students were over 30.
United States
In the US in 2024, four percent of all enrolled students were aged 40 to 49 years old. People aged 50 and over made up slightly more than two percent of all enrolled students.
The Categorization Problem
The way statistics are kept makes tracking older enrollment difficult. Taking Australia as an example, the category of mature-age student is ‘21 and over.’ This practice of lumping people together is outdated. For example, labelling people 60 and above as being ‘old-aged’ fails to consider the individual differences and multiple stages in life that a sixty and above person might experience. The same applies to labelling all people 75 and above as ‘elderly,’ with all the connotations implied.
The Stats
In Australia in 2025, there are a total of 4.3 million females between 50 and 79. This means a substantial number of women will be turning 55 by 2030.
Thousands of women during the next decade will experience a crisis of identity following retirement and the loss of their title, network and routine. This is not a personal problem but a societal blind spot. It’s something barely talked about.
And by 2046 it is projected that 65 percent of women aged 60 years will be living alone, reflecting the higher life expectancy of women.
The Challenge of Retirement
In the coming years, many women will need to work beyond the traditional (and outdated) retirement age to finance their longer lifespan, and in some cases to avoid homelessness. In Australia, the 2021 Census showed an increase of seven percent on the 2016 census to more than seven thousand women over 55 experiencing homelessness.
For other women who retire from the workplace and are financially secure, the challenges will be to give their lives a meaningful purpose, to structure their time, and to create a strong social network.
One pathway to achieve these goals could be university study, especially for those with a love of lifelong learning and a desire for personal accomplishment. The educational process itself would provide structure and socialization, and would lead to meaningful engagement after graduation.
50+ Mature-Age Academic Pathway: A Suggestion
What’s needed is a new pathway for women fifty and beyond who want to undertake academic studies. This ‘50+ Mature-Age Pathway’ (as opposed to considering older students to be ‘21 and over’) will provide choices beyond graduation in academia and in the workplace.
There is already a steady cohort of baby boomer students in Australia, mostly women, enrolling at university at the age of 60 and above. This pathway would make it official, with these elements:
Our Time: Academia
- Upon successful graduation, there will be a pathway to employment opportunities teaching 50+ mature-age students. A Tertiary Teaching Course, designed for lecturers working with 50+ students, will be provided as part of their employment.
- A pathway to academic promotion will be provided.
Our Time: The Workplace
- The university will build relationships with businesses that support a culture of diversity and inclusion, and that are keen to employ female graduates of the 50+ mature-age pathway.
- An example of a possible partnership could be setting up a recognised pathway for graduates to become Remote Education Tutors.
As a former academic, I think that a partnership between women 50 and beyond and academia would be a win-win situation. I’m sure it would be equally successful in the UK, where mature-aged students are ‘21 and over,’ and in the US, where mature-age students are ‘24 and over.’ And if governments could come to the party with an innovative study allowance, that would be even better.
What do you think of the idea?
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