Following the GSA 2024 Momentum Discussion “Learners for Life: The Future of Higher Education in an Era of Longevity” in Seattle, the panel regrouped to film a webinar designed to equip higher education leaders with insights into how to transform their institutions into age-friendly environments that address the educational needs of diverse age groups, making higher education a meaningful space for lifelong learners.

This webinar explores the intersection of aging and education and the opportunities that increased life expectancy presents for higher education. The discussion focuses on how higher education can better accommodate age-diverse learners, ranging from older students returning for degrees to faculty and staff planning for retirement.

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Support provided by TIAA Institute.

During this Momentum Discussion podcast episode, GSA VP Lisa McGuire and TIAA Institute Head Surya Kolluri discuss how rapid transformations in our society are impacting trends in higher education. With life expectancy rising by 17 years since the Social Security program debuted in the United States nearly 90 years ago, tremendous opportunities have arisen on many fronts, including in higher education. The podcast also addresses some of the headwinds that come from these changes as they relate to institutions of higher education. Lisa and Surya discuss how, by broadening the scope of educational and recruitment efforts to include learners of all ages, institutions can be transformed and experience an economic lift.

Support provided by TIAA Institute.

Many factors have affected the number of people who seek higher education and the times in their lives when they do so. In addition to the decline in the number of students at colleges and universities owing to the COVID-19 pandemic and lower birth rates, today’s students are older, more likely to attend on a part-time basis, and more likely to seek graduate education. Among undergraduates, nearly one-fourth are at least 25 years old, and many take classes online and on campus. The publication describes the trends that are driving changes in higher education that could combine with an age-inclusivity movement to provide solutions to many of higher education’s fiscal challenges. The Age Inclusivity Domains of Higher Education model figures prominently throughout the publication as it provides a framework for how institutions are expanding their services. 

Click here to view a scrollable version of this publication.

Support provided by TIAA Institute

In this Momentum Discussion podcast, James Appleby, GSA CEO interviews Dr. Debra Whitman, AARP Chief Public Policy Officer about her new book, The Second Fifty: Answers to the 7 Big Questions of Midlife and Beyond.  Dr. Whitman shares why she authored this book and why the book is organized around seven questions.  She provides insights about health and longevity, how we may reduce the risk of developing dementia, and what we should be demanding of our policymakers in this regard. Finally, Deb Whitman provides thoughts on how this country can address the aging population.

This podcast episode is supported by AARP.

More than 90% of caregivers are also financial caregivers, defined as either contributing direct financial support or coordinating some or all their loved one’s money-related matters. Managing someone’s finances is complex and can extend for months or even years, both during the care recipient’s life and often well beyond the death of a loved one. Longer life spans and lifestyle changes create an urgency to plan for caregiving costs across life stages, not just in middle age. Attention to financial caregiving, when coupled with financial and longevity literacy, can help optimize retirement readiness. This podcast episode provides helpful actions that families, employers, and communities can take to help address this critical need. 

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This podcast episode is supported by TIAA Institute. 

The social determinants of health —and how they influence the health, wealth, and social trajectories of people in the times and places in which they live and work — are the focus of a new report published by the Gerontological Society of America with support from the Bank of America. Through sidebars illustrating innovations by employers, the report demonstrates the important role companies play in optimizing the social determinants of health for employees and families, their customers, and the communities they serve.

This report was developed by the Gerontological Society of America and supported by Bank of America.

This report seeks to explore these changing times through the lens of “Longevity Fitness”—a term that describes how people can thrive, not just survive, throughout increasingly long lifespans by achieving social, health, and wealth equity. This concept was developed in a GSA report, Longevity Fitness: Financial and Health Dimensions Across the Life Course. 

Supported by Bank of America.

When it comes to optimizing Longevity Fitness through attention to health, wealth, and social aspects of life, many Americans face intractable inequities based on the color of their skin, where they live, their sex, and who they love. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the importance of such demographics in the cold hard realities of caseloads and mortality rates. This Momentum Discussion—based on the third in a series of GSA/Bank of America reports on people’s increasingly long lives—documents the effects of these inequities and explores the beneficial efforts of corporations and other employers to enhance diversity and inclusion. 

Supported by Bank of America.

“Longevity Fitness” is the term used in the GSA report, "Longevity Fitness: Financial and Health Dimensions Across the Life Course" describing how people can thrive by matching their Health Spans, Wealth Spans, and Life Spans as they enjoy increasingly long lives. Transitions commonly associated with advancing age—work disruptions, physical decline, dementia—can be better managed when a person has planned for the social support, financial means, and health resources needed to compensate for aging-related physical and cognitive changes. As people age, chronic diseases accumulate and reduce the ability to carry out the necessary activities of daily life. When a person also is lacking in social support, financial resources, or access to health care, the result of declining functional ability is a downward and potentially irreversible spiral. Insecurities in life—including uncertainty about food, housing, transportation, health care, or safety—exacerbate this situation, leading people to live in isolation or poverty and to be unable to seek the interventions they need for maintaining health and ultimately their ability to take care of themselves. In this webinar, experts in the field will exchange ideas about the concept of Longevity Fitness and insights into positive aging across the life course. 

Webinar Handout

Supported by Bank of America.

This report seeks to focus on ways to support Americans as a newly recognized Longevity Economy becomes an increasingly important part of this nation’s economic activity and overall fiscal health at the local, regional, and national levels. By convening a workgroup of experts in this field, The Gerontological Society of America and Bank of America Merrill Lynch seek to concentrate on innovation and creative strategies. Small changes can make a big difference in the lives of older Americans as well as the economic health of the nation, and multiple levers can be used to effect positive change in the Longevity Economy. 

Support provided by Bank of America.