Thinking of going back to college to pursue a second career as a college instructor? Expect your professors to be older than you are — maybe even well past retirement age. And take note that a bottleneck is forming in the professorial ranks as more retirement-age profs decide to keep teaching.
That's the nugget from a recent Fidelity Investments survey of nearly 200 full- and part-time college professors who were eligible for retirement benefits. Three-quarters of professors in the 49- to 67-year-old age range said they will either delay their retirement beyond when they could take it, or have decided not to retire at all.
The implications for the university-level teaching profession are significant. As more aging profs hang on to their book-lined offices, those coming up are going to have to wait longer to get started and be more patient as they seek tenure, that most golden of university employment rings.
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Some 70 percent of respondents cited money as one factor in their decision. But most claimed financial worries weren't the main reason that led them to postpone retirement.
"While many would assume that delayed retirement would be solely due to economic reasons, surprisingly eight in 10 – 81 percent – cited personal or professional reasons for delayed retirement," said John Rangoni, vice president of tax exempt services at Fidelity. "Higher education employees, especially faculty, are deeply committed to their students, education and the institutions they serve."
Respondents were able to choose more than a single answer to questions about why they chose to delay retirement. The survey found:
- 89 percent "want to stay busy and productive;"
- 64 percent "love their work too much to give it up;"
- 41 percent wanted to continue to have access to their institutions
Asked about the financial component to their decision, professors responded in the following way:
- 55 percent weren't sure they'd have enough money to retire on;
- 42 percent were holding off retirement to maximize Social Security benefits;
- 42 percent were hanging on for health coverage.
The survey results supported similar research done by Roger Baldwin, professor of educational administration at Michigan State University.
Baldwin studies retired faculty members and the organizations they belong to, and has noted a tendency for profs to want to remain active in their profession as long as possible.
"I think many people are delaying retirement because there are no clear options as to how they're going to continue an intellectually fulfilling life once they 'drop off a cliff,'" he said. "That, coupled with the (recession of 2008), caused a lot of people to reassess retirement."
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Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
