Higher Ed Meets Longevity: The Global Rise Of Midlife Education

Feeling Like Learning Something New?

The Rise and Rise of Midlife Education

Behind the gates of Harvard, Stanford and Cambridge, and as far away as Singapore, a quiet revolution is underway. Not in artificial intelligence or biotech, but in the architecture of human longevity.

On Season 10 of the 4-Quarter Lives podcast, I spoke with directors of twelve pioneering midlife programs across the US, Europe and Asia. Their perspectives converged on a single point: higher education is being redesigned for the second half of our lengthening lives.

When I wrote about this trend back in 2022, these programs still felt like enlightened experiments. Harvard’s Advanced Leadership Initiative (ALI) and Stanford’s Distinguished Careers Institute (DCI) were early trailblazers; a couple in Europe were tentatively exploring the terrain. Today, a global ecosystem has emerged — stretching from Singapore to Lisbon, Chicago to St. Gallen — driven by demographic shifts, economic pressure, and a generational hunger for renewal and ‘unretirement.’

This movement arrives at a moment of profound transition for universities. The U.S. faces what demographers call the “18-22 demographic cliff” — a projected 15–20% drop in college-age youth between 2025 and 2035. Europe is on a similar trajectory, while parts of East Asia are already experiencing dramatic contractions. South Korea’s university-age population, for example, is expected to more than halve by 2065.

The Advanced Leadership Initiative

“We simply can’t rely on a youth-only model anymore,” said Brian Trelstad, Faculty Chair of Harvard’s ALI. “Longer lives demand longer learning.”

Midlife education is no longer a niche curiosity; it is becoming a strategic necessity.

Why Midlife Education Is Taking Off Now

The rise of midlife programs reflects a convergence of demographic reality, economic need and individual aspiration. People are living longer and working across many more chapters. But societies have not yet built the scaffolding for these transitions.

“Lives have doubled —yet our educational pathways have not,” observed Sarah Singer, Faculty Director of Stanford’s DCI. “People are arriving in midlife not at the end, but at the midpoint.”

The Distinguished Careers Institute

Stanford DCI

The economic case is equally compelling. Many countries now rely on older workers to sustain productivity and public finances, yet these same workers are increasingly seeking purpose, meaning and new ways to contribute. As Seth Green, Dean of the University of Chicago’s Graham School running the Leadership & Society Initiative (LSI), put it: “Midlife is the moment leaders begin asking not ‘What’s next?’ but ‘What for?’”

What universities are discovering is that these questions are not peripheral to leadership — they are leadership. “People aren’t stepping back — they’re stepping toward something,” says Lindsey Beagley of Arizona State University. “They just need help defining it.”

And at a time when universities globally are reassessing their relevance and financial resilience, midlife learners represent not just a new market segment, but a renewed mission. As Marc Freedman, co-CEO of CoGenerate and Founding Faculty Director of Yale’s Experienced Leadership Initiative (ELI) noted: “When institutions reorient around connection, contribution and cross-generational exchange, they rediscover their civic purpose.”

Inside the Global Midlife Education Landscape

Despite spanning three continents and a wide range of institutional cultures, the programs I spoke with share a common DNA. Each offers time, community and reflection — the rarest resources in modern professional life.

But their diversity is equally instructive. They vary in length, audience and cultural framing. Each is a product of its own institution’s history, goals and context.

At Harvard, the ALI fellowship emanated from the business school and positions midlife leaders as catalysts for civic and societal impact. Stanford’s DCI started with medical school faculty and is oriented toward personal reinvention and the transitions that accompany longer, healthier lives. Chicago’s LSI integrates leadership development with intergenerational mentorship and regional impact. Católica Lisbon’s program focuses on preparing executives for longevity leadership in business across global contexts, while the London Interdisciplinary School is reinventing the MBA for all ages around key 21^st century shifts, of which longevity is one.

The Longevity Leadership Programme

Catolica Lisbon

St. Gallen blends design thinking with demographic analysis — and a distinctly European framing. Cambridge’s program anchors midlife reinvention in intellectual curiosity: “We treat reflection not as a pause, but as strategy,” said Stewart McTavish, Academic Director of the Better Futures Programme. “People need structured time to think.”

INSEAD offers a programme designed for retiring alumni, harnessing AI to power up new ventures, while ASU anchors its offering in public problem-solving. NEXEL functions as a consortium of all of these schools, helping universities share their learning and encourage and facilitate the building of similar midlife programs. “The future is not one institution,” Simon Chan, co-Chair of NEXEL told me. “Longevity is too big for any single university. The future is a consortium.”

And in Asia, where demographic urgency meets entrepreneurial energy, Virginia Cha, Academic Director of NUS Singapore’s Distinguished Senior Fellows Program, described longevity as national strategy. “Longevity isn’t an individual issue here — it’s economic policy. Education must respond.”

What These Programs Share

Across all twelve programs, several themes consistently appear.

• A COMMUNITY OF PEERS: First is the importance of cohorts. “Purpose grows out of peers,” Kate Schaefers, co-chair of NEXEL (and director of the University of Minnesota’s Midlife Academy) said. Directors described the network as the true curriculum — the source of accountability, creativity and support.

• TIME TO THINK: Second is structured reflection. These programs create time for thinking — a scarce commodity in midlife. They blend coaching, seminars, facilitated dialogues and interdisciplinary encounters that challenge participants’ assumptions. As Amelia Peterson of LIS observed, “People in midlife want to work on real complexity, not narrow problems.”

• BACK TO SCHOOL: Third is the catalytic role of place. Being back on campus — even part-time — provides a psychological distance from professional identities and permission to reimagine what comes next. Mixing intentionally and intergenerationally with much younger people. Free from labels, expectations and routines. A physical manifestation of starting anew.

How They Differ

Their missions range from personal reinvention to civic leadership, from entrepreneurial experimentation to demographic renewal. Some are full-time and residential; others modular or hybrid. Some attract CEOs in their 60s; others welcome professionals in their 30s and 40s.

Outcomes vary too: new ventures, portfolio careers, civic initiatives, social innovation, or simply renewed clarity. “We don’t measure success by certificates,” said Hellmut Schütte, Founder of INSEAD’s AI Ventures. “We measure it by what people do next.”

What Must Come Next

Midlife learning is still in its early stages. We’re still at Midlife 1.0. To meet the demands of longer lives, universities will need to scale all of these initiatives dramatically and design ways to make them accessible to many more.

But the growing attention to midlife learning is starting to ripple across the broader leadership landscape. The latest issue of I by IMD (one of Europe’s top business schools) — is entirely devoted to longevity — and underscores how rapidly the theme is moving from the periphery to the core of executive education.

IMD’s take highlights longevity not as a social concern but as a strategic, economic and leadership imperative. The editors argue that longer lives will reshape everything from talent pipelines and board composition to innovation cycles and corporate purpose. This reinforces what every director in this season’s conversations emphasised: longevity is no longer an individual project. It is becoming a defining organising principle for institutions that aim to remain relevant in a multi-generational, 100-year life world.

Europe’s demographic trajectory demands a continent-wide strategy for longevity learning. “We can’t design European longevity strategy without designing European longevity education,” Sebastian Kernbach, Professor at the University of St Gallen, told me.

It also requires new partnerships. The next generation of midlife programs will link universities with employers, cities and governments. NEXEL’s consortium model is an early glimpse of this future.

Higher education must also normalise continuous, multi-chapter education. “People will need several structured transitions across a 60-year career,” Céline Abecassis-Moedas said. “Midlife is just the beginning.”

The Distinguished Fellowship Programme

NUS

Intergenerational learning will grow in importance. “It’s the collision that creates possibility,” concludes Peterson. AI will likely accelerate transitions by helping individuals map skills and explore pathways.

Cha offered perhaps the clearest summary: “If universities don’t redesign for longevity, they will miss the century’s biggest opportunity.”

Universities As Longevity Laboratories

Universities are becoming longevity laboratories, designing the next chapter of education for the next chapter of life. They offer something adults in midlife rarely receive: community, structure, time for reflection and an expanded sense of possibility. Now, the challenge is to scale. Fast.

Longevity is rewriting the life course.

Higher education is finally catching on.

---

Want to Hear More?

Business & Longevity — live sector briefings

Longevity is quietly reshaping every sector — from how people work, to how organisations develop leaders, transfer knowledge, and think about careers over time.

Alongside this writing, I’m launching a new Business & Longevity live briefing series, each session focusing on how one sector is adapting to longer lives and careers.

First briefing: Higher Education, Jan 22nd
How universities are redesigning education for mid-career renewal, late-career leadership, and Q3–Q4 transitions.

📅 Live webinar | 90 minutes, January 22nd, 17h00 London, 12h00 NYC
🎟 £95 per person
🎥 Recording provided

Sign Up Here.
(Annual paid elderberries subscribers get 20% off, just email me for the Discount Code.)

Future briefings will explore how other sectors — from finance and healthcare to professional services and the arts — are responding to longevity.