The names are different, but the content is similar: Studying from 50 (Uni Magdeburg), Studium Plus (PH Freiburg), Seniorenakademie (TU Dresden), Campus of Generations (Uni Trier), contact studies after work and family (Uni Kiel): Many German colleges and universities offer events especially for older people. “I expect around 30,000 senior students nationwide. However, due to Corona and the switch to online courses, there was a decrease of at least 30 percent,” estimates Thomas Bertram, Chairman of the Federal Working Group for Scientific Further Education for Older People, looking at developments over the past two years. It has around 60 colleges and universities as members who make special offers for older semesters. Bertram, Head of Senior Studies at Leibniz Universität Hannover, also sees the new digital offers as an opportunity: “We have lost people, but we have also gained quite a few who are no longer so mobile and for whom the way to the university is too difficult . Our catchment area has grown.”
Enjoys concrete projects on local history
At the University of Cologne, those responsible for senior citizen studies asked their students about the consequences of Corona and the switch to online studies. Result: A lack of technical knowledge or insufficient technical equipment were usually the decisive factors when the course was discontinued. “Many simply couldn’t imagine how they could maintain close contact with their fellow students online, which is an important motivation for their studies,” says coordinator Anne Löhr.
“We stayed on the ball and didn’t let ourselves be put off by zoom conferences because we already knew each other through the face-to-face studies before Corona,” reports Otto Gertzen at an event as part of the German Senior Citizens’ Day, which recently took place in the form of digital events . The pensioner has been enrolled as a guest student at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster (WWU) for many years, where the contact point for studying in old age focuses, among other things, on research-based learning in the field of local history. The students should contribute their experiences and questions and develop their own projects. The seniors get involved in fixed groups for four semesters and discuss, among other things, how best to work on a specific topic.
Gertzen dealt intensively with a mother-child home near Münster under the main topic of gender stories and examined how the position of single parents has changed over the period of 40 years since the post-war period. He spoke to numerous people affected and employees and tracked down and evaluated a lot of material. At the end, the results of Gertzen and his fellow students will be published in a publication. “The research interested me the most. The interest of people who lived in this home as small children and now want to know more about it has been a strong motivation for this work,” he explains.
In some places there is a social tariff so that older people with little money can also study
Gertzen has also attended university seminars open to all ages, where he sits alongside aspiring teachers and historians. In an event about victims of National Socialism at the University of Münster, every student was supposed to find out more about the biography of a specific person who was persecuted as a scientist. “Events like this run over a semester. The time pressure is greater, but the task is also more manageable. The contact between older and younger students is not as close as it is among seniors. It’s more personal with us older people,” he emphasizes.
Wolfgang Schadt is studying at the University of the Third Age (U3L), a course offered by the Goethe University in Frankfurt/Main, which is one of the largest in Germany. The current U3L course catalog is more than 100 pages long. Courses in history, art history, philosophy, psychology and literature are particularly in demand. The average age is 70 years, women and men are represented in roughly equal numbers, the fee for the current semester is 150 euros. Even if no Abitur is necessary, the seniors’ course has an elitist image due to the large number of academics. In order not to exclude older people with little money, there is a much cheaper social tariff. You can’t acquire degrees – with one exception: an interdisciplinary course of study runs over five semesters, which always has a main topic, currently man and nature. At the end you can write a scientific paper and receive a certificate upon successful completion.
Schadt describes his experience with online studies as follows: “Sometimes 30 people are on the screen at the same time. Good moderation and discipline contribute to success, and we older people often have that. You can get more involved online than at face-to-face events. ” A survey last summer semester brought numerous other positive comments about the online events such as “They are an opportunity to do something for the mind and soul in this otherwise culture-less time” or “They are a connection to other students, and that’s how it can be the contact maintained. However, the direct, personal contact would be nicer.” Most want a mix of online offerings and face-to-face seminars in the future.
Digital education for seniors already existed before the pandemic
After years of continuous increase in the number of senior students – almost 3900 in 2019 – more than half of the older students left after the start of the pandemic in Frankfurt. The name “university of the 3rd age” was deliberately chosen – unlike in Münster and at other universities, the seniors in Frankfurt stay among themselves during their studies, their enrollment for the U3L does not entitle them to attend events at the University of Frankfurt.
Online offers for older students already existed before Corona. The center for general scientific further education at the University of Ulm has been organizing a nationwide for years Lecture series for seniors followed by a discussion in which a focus is examined from various scientific perspectives. This year the topic is artificial intelligence. Also in Ulm was the club “Virtual and real learning and competence network of older people” founded. He encourages those interested in science to become active themselves, to work on projects such as “Women’s History” or “Jewish Cemeteries” or to exchange ideas in a digital learning café.
In a podcast, Ines Himmelsbach points out a special aspect of studying at an advanced age. The professor of social gerontology at the Catholic University of Freiburg has among her students more and more people who are 40 years of age and older and are aiming for a regular degree in the field of social work in order to be able to take on new professional positions. “These older students are often much more focused and goal-oriented and enrich the discussions with their professional experience and critical questions,” says Himmelsbach, adding: “Due to the different perspectives, mixed-age groups are profitable for both younger and older people.”