Is it ever too late to start a degree?

[John Titor]

Ideally, it's never too late but prepare of obstacles. I think you get limited financial aid the older you are.

 

[idosometimes]

Depends on what you want to do. You can't spend 12 years in college at 50 hoping for a prosperous career. You can get a degree whenever. People change jobs and start over. You can too. Unless the dang dirty trolls have drained your concentration to 20% or less.

 

[Scandihoovian]

At 27 I am in year 2 at college.
However, I look way younger than I am actually am so I don't stand out as an older person.

I think age used to matter when companies would hire employees and keep them for their entire careers. Now, people just switch employees around constantly.

On a bar association forum it was even recommending that people should go to law school at a later age becuase so many kids go to law school/get a similar level of education and than regret it, or can't find a job due to age discrimination towards millennialsans and the current saturated job market.

Higher education and career paths are changing and the traditional route becoming more obsolete.

 

[Jace E. Denton]

No, the only person who can hold you back in life is yourself. Getting a job with the degree is all about self-promotion, it doesn't matter if an employer is looking at a 24 year old vs a 40 year old, if they both have identical qualifications and capabilities, the job is going to go to whoever sells themselves better on their resume and in the interview. All things being equal in terms of credentials, good employers know how to spot which candidates are actually going to be good workers who don't need hand holding.

Also just lie on your resume like everyone else on the fucking planet, there's no way to prove or disprove most things people put on a resume. Might sound sleazy to some people, but be real, the majority of your competition is out there lying on their resumes because they want that job and don't care if you get fucked over in the selection process.

Also keep in mind the most profitable fields where employers are absolutely scrambling to find workers are fields where degrees often don't matter, I.E. coding and IT, you can get those kinds of jobs just by being self-taught and talented.

 

[ERROR_ENTRY]

I don't think so. I think the most important thing is what you study. For example, lets say you are a low skilled, recently laid-off worker in your late 20's with no college degree who wants to learn new skills. You are best off getting a degree technology related, e.g. programming due to the doors it'll open for you. Studying something like arts won't do a thing for you.

On the other hand, if you are retired and want to study philosophy, ethics, english lit etc. all the power to you.

 

[Trilby]

Being 39, I'm sure my prospects for getting a degree are getting slimmer by the minute.

 

[BatNapalm]

Pow-pow-power level

Spoiler

I was about 24-ish when I started on my second degree (I had my bachelors but after a year or two in the field, I felt I needed this one if I wanted to make any real progress in my tech writing career) and even though it was mostly part-time night courses (aside from a couple of fuck-ass labs that I had to schedule work around), I still felt self-conscious even though there were other working adults in my classes that were considerably older than me. This wasn't a huge issue for me, since I wasn't there to make friend, but I still felt self-conscious about it and even then, I don't like admitting that I went back to school.

It was a really tough road those last couple of years but I do think it benefited me in the long run, as it helped me get my current job and put my career back on the right track. That said, I really don't recommend it because it's a huge investment that could have very well not paid off.

While I don't think one can be too old, there are a few things I think older people should consider when going to school/back to school, like:

Spoiler: Brule's Rules

• If your employer is going to work around your school schedule (I'd say most of them don't, which is why a lot of college students don't work when they're full time or even part time, barring internships or co-ops. I got lucky here having the jobs that I did, shitty as most of them were).
• Do you have a background that will transfer well into your chosen field/major? I.e. you already have experience in this general field and just need a degree to take your career to the next level.
• If not, it might be difficult for an older person with unrelated work history to break into a new field and I probably wouldn't recommend going to school unless you have a ton of money saved up and you're really, really dedicated (and even then, odds are definitely not in your favor there's a big chance that no one is going to give you an opportunity). Depending on the field, finding internships and co-ops are fucking hell if you're older.
• Once you start, you're kind of trapped (especially if you have an employment gap on your resume). I wanted to bail on multiple occasions because I didn't think it was benefiting me at the time and actually holding me back to one point, but then I didn't want to have to explain in a future job interview why I started a second degree and never finished it. So I finished it and while it did ultimately pay off for me, it's sort of bittersweet.

TL;DR it's possible but I don't recommend it as anything other than a very last resort (i.e. no one will give you a job in your current field and you have no choice but to change careers) and/or a degree is the last piece of the puzzle that your already active career needs.