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Hechinger Report higher-education editor Jon Marcus speaks with WBAL in Baltimore about how Sweden makes it even easier for older-than-traditional-age adults to go to college than it does for conventional high-school graduates, with everything from free tuition to day care to sabbaticals from work.

The result? A larger percentage of people in Sweden go to college who are older than the traditional age than in any other member country of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD.

The United States, by comparison, raises obstacles to older adults returning to school, which the nation will need to encourage if it is to meet the goal of raising the proportion of the population with degrees.

Yet the number of older-than-traditional-age Americans who are going back to school has been declining, not increasing.

Read the original story, which appeared in The Atlantic, here.

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The obstacles to going back to college

by Jon Marcus, The Hechinger Report
July 6, 2015

<h1>The obstacles to going back to college</h1> <p class="byline">by Jon Marcus, The Hechinger Report <br />July 6, 2015</p> <p>Hechinger Report higher-education editor Jon Marcus speaks with WBAL in Baltimore about how Sweden makes it even easier for older-than-traditional-age adults to go to college than it does for conventional high-school graduates, with everything from free tuition to day care to sabbaticals from work.</p> <div style="width: 550px;margin-left:20px"> <p><audio class="wp-audio-shortcode" id="audio-0-1" preload="none" style="width: 100%" controls="controls"><a href="https://hechingerreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Jon-Marcus-The-atlantic-40-yo-graduates.mp3">https://hechingerreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Jon-Marcus-The-atlantic-40-yo-graduates.mp3</a></audio> </div> <p>The result? A larger percentage of people in Sweden go to college who are older than the traditional age than in any other member country of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD.</p> <p>The United States, by comparison, raises obstacles to older adults returning to school, which the nation will need to encourage if it is to meet the goal of raising the proportion of the population with degrees.</p> <p>Yet the number of older-than-traditional-age Americans who are going back to school has been declining, not increasing.</p> <p>Read the original story, which appeared in The Atlantic, <a href="https://hechingerreport.org/while-u-s-struggles-sweden-pushes-older-students-back-to-college/">here</a>.</p> <p>This &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://hechingerreport.org/the-obstacles-to-going-back-to-college/&quot;&gt;article&lt;/a&gt; first appeared on &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://hechingerreport.org&quot;&gt;The Hechinger Report&lt;/a&gt; and is republished here under a &lt;a target=&quot;_blank&quot; href=&quot;https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/&quot;&gt;Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;img src=&quot;https://i0.wp.com/hechingerreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/cropped-favicon.jpg?fit=150%2C150&amp;amp;ssl=1&quot; style=&quot;width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;&quot;&gt;</p> &lt;img id=&quot;republication-tracker-tool-source&quot; src=&quot;https://hechingerreport.org/?republication-pixel=true&amp;post=22226&amp;amp;ga4=G-03KPHXDF3H&quot; style=&quot;width:1px;height:1px;&quot;&gt;&lt;script&gt; PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: &quot;https://hechingerreport.org/the-obstacles-to-going-back-to-college/&quot;, urlref: window.location.href }); } } &lt;/script&gt; &lt;script id=&quot;parsely-cfg&quot; src=&quot;//cdn.parsely.com/keys/hechingerreport.org/p.js&quot;&gt;&lt;/script&gt;

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