Am I REALLY Too Old for a PhD?
Dr. Steve Tippins, an academic with 35 years of experience, argues that age is not a barrier to a PhD. He presents median ages across disciplines, addresses concerns about hiring and funding, and says life experience strengthens both learning and teaching. Purpose and motivation matter more than how old you are.
Chapters
I frequently get the question, how old is too old to do a PhD? The ultimate answer is there is no age that's too old. What we'll go through here is the average age of PhD students by many disciplines. And then we'll talk about what it's like to be in a PhD program and the issue of age, if it even ever arises. My name is Dr. Steve Tippins. I've been involved with academia for over 35 years. So obviously I got my PhD when I was two. I've been on over 300 dissertation communities committees. I've helped coach over a hundred people to finishing their dissertation. And it's my goal in life to help people finish their dissertation and go out and change the world. So am I too old to enter a doctoral program, complete a doctoral program? No. As long as you're inquisitive and you want to learn more and do research, there is no limit to the age. The ultimate question is it's what do you want to do afterwards and why are you getting a PhD? So if the PhD or EDD or any and, you know, terminal doctoral degree, if it's what you want to do, go for it, do it. I will say I have had clients ranging from their 20s to their late 70s. And additionally we were talking to someone recently who is in their, looks like early 40s working on their dissertation and their mother is also working on their dissertation. So, so what are some of the concerns people might have about being too old to be in a doctoral program? One is, I hear, well, that's only young people should do that. No, a doctoral program, you don't have to be young. You do have to understand it's hard work, but you can do it in your 60s and 70s. I have not personally, but I have seen people who've completed in their 80s and 90s. So as long as you are actively interested and willing to read and learn, that's not an issue. That the issue for some people is, oh, and I want to teach when I get done. And are universities going to hire me? And this is, is anybody going to hire me? Let's not talk about universities if I'm 78. Regardless of what job you're looking for, there's not supposed to be age discrimination, but other than a greeter at Walmart or something, it's harder to get jobs as you age because people think erroneously that, oh, if I hire somebody who's 64, they're only going to be here for a year or two. My experience and from research I've seen Older employees are much more dedicated and stay around longer because most people are only around a year or two anyways in their jobs. So it doesn't matter how old they are, it's just how well they do the job. Another concern is I don't want to spend all my time with someone who's 22, 23, I'm 54, I'm done with that. Well, first, you're going to take some classes with other people, especially if you're on campus, but you're not. You don't have to spend a lot of time with them because you're going to be off doing your own work. Second, when we get different ages and different perspectives involved, it helps the learning process because you're going to bring things to the table that they don't understand and they're going to bring things to the table that you may not understand. And it's going to give you a much better and more rounded education in the process. And once you get to the dissertation process, it doesn't matter who it is, it's you and your committee and that's it. So there's research and there's a table that will include, and I'll link below, about average ages of people or median ages of people who got their doctorate. And, you know, it pretty much ranges from 29 to 35 ish as the median age of completing. And if you look at, you know, people who complete under 25 in no discipline, is it above 22% if it's over 45. You know, there are some disciplines where it's over 25% of the participants are over 45 when they finish their degrees. So don't think, oh, I'm 32, I can never do this. You're right in the middle of the sweet spot of people doing things like this. You know, science and engineering, which is a whole big group, you know, the median age to get a doctorate is 30.7 years. Okay. In business it's 33 and a half, in the humanities, the 34 and a half, psychology, 31. So, you know, we're not talking 22 year olds are getting these degrees. So in my experience, like I said earlier, I've had clients in their 20s, up into their late 70s, but it seems that most of the people that I work with concentrated around 35 to 50, somewhere in that range and most probably on average in their early 40s. No matter at what age you are, no matter where you are in the process, we have a free community which does information material for participants. There's a group of people in there you can connect with and it's free to join. So click the link below and come on in. When I hear people say, oh, I'm too old, it's passed me by. It's usually because of other reasons. Is it financial, like, okay, I don't want to take on debt now, or I've got my kids to think about, or I'm deep in my career, I don't want to do that, you know, so there's other things to discuss other than just age. And then it becomes why do you want to get a degree? What's your purpose for getting a degree? What's your dream for getting a degree? And those are things we want to be thinking about and talking about. So if we think about age and you know, what's the youngest somebody can enter a PhD program? You know, I guess there are people who finish an undergraduate degree at 16 and they might go into a master's and end up in a doctoral program at 17 or 8. Teen Typically though, if we think about the non, you know, super genius, the youngest you might see is 23 or 24, typically going in. And at a traditional university, sometimes they're reluctant to accept people that are too young because part of the process is you teach. And when they unleash a 22 year old into a class with a bunch of 21 year olds, they've seen there can be issues in class control and things like that. And universities find that people who've had some experience in the world tend to be better also in the classroom. What I have seen is a huge advantage of having some life experience. Having fallen down a few times and gotten up and then going into the classroom, you, first of all, it's harder to fluster you because you have been in lots of different situations. Second of all, you may have some interesting stories to supplement what's in the book. Because look, there's nothing more boring than, than somebody who's been given the book and doesn't know much about it and they come in and just basically read the book to you, those are just dry and dull and boring classes. But when you're teaching a topic and you say the book says this and here's how it works in the real world, here's a situation, or the book says this, but you know, in my experience I've dealt with clients or people and, you know, this works better or you get to really enhance the learning process and students like that a heck of a lot more. When you get to the dissertation phase you know, is having experience help? Yes and no. No. Having experience. If you got too much practical, real world experience, learning and switching to academic writing, where you have to justify everything, as opposed to say, the answer is 12. Just trust me, it's 12. You have to say, well, you know, it was Jones and Rabinowitz of 1968 that said touch and touch and, you know, you back everything up. That can be just hard to understand and learn the academic writing process. But if you know you have, and you've had experience of working with people and seeing people and seeing that they can agree and disagree, then working with a committee and understanding the way that people work can be a lot easier for you. One question I get is, you know, what's the best age to get a PhD now? I mean, the best age is when you complete. Everybody comes from a different perspective. When you finished it, it was the best time for you to finish. Funding becomes an issue. Is it harder to get funding if you're dealing with student loans? No, you're just getting student loans if you're dealing with funding from an instit. Some institutions that are traditional, you know, brick and mortar places may be a little reluctant to give funding to someone who's in their 70s, maybe even their 60s. But other than that, I mean, I've seen people get funding in their 50s without an issue. Another topic that's related to age is how long does it take to finish. It can depend on discipline. Three to five years. I've seen people go much longer than that. But, you know, if you're dedicated and following a system and doing what's right, you can do it in three or four years. I guess the final thing I want to say about the issue of age is it's predominantly in your head. Don't worry. Go apply. Let them accept you. I alluded to the fact that when you're working on your dissertation, it's just you and your committee. So it can be a long and lonely journey. Come join us in our free dissertation community where we want to help support you and help you finish.
