Periodically see articles about colleges/ universities doings to 'entice' retirees so there must be something of 'body of potential recruits' - over and above the middle aged 'career changers' - yet another group geting occasional media attention.
This discussion brings up an issue that should be of concern to all Americans as we face the prospect of having to make our economy more efficient in the future, to maintain our standard of living with a workforce that will be declining as a fraction of the overall population.
I am willing to take it as a "given" that all young people should have at least a high school education at public expense, and would even be willing to extend this principle to an additional two years of technical training at a community college. What should be questioned from an economic perspective, however, is (1) what sort of "higher" education should be provided, and (2) who should pay for it?
As the above quote illustrates, higher education is a type of "business." It employs a lot of people who provide a service that, most obviously, consists of enabling individuals to accumulate "intellectual capital" that they are then free to "sell" in the market to the highest bidder. (The idea that workers "sell themselves" is a bunch of outmoded Marxist nonsense in modern market-based industrial societies.)
Like workers in every other industry, those in the business of higher education do whatever they can to promote "sales" of their services. They do this through a combination of advocating government and private subsidies, and "marketing" to potential students. The problem is that, as with practically all industries, the amount of higher education that these people advocate is considerably higher than what is economically optimal for the nation as a whole.
To correct this imbalance, I generally favor a policy of making students pay a higher fraction of the total cost of higher education through tuition. Having loans available at somewhat subsidized rates is fine, and also having programs like ROTC that pay a portion of costs in exchange for a set period of public service after graduation. (In fact, I took advantage of the latter myself.)
As this applies to the special issue of adults taking college courses just "out of interest," I have done that too and think that it is great. An important point that I would add, however, is that those of us who do should pay the full cost.