When I applied to Columbia’s General Studies program (for those who did not complete college the first time for various reasons), my friends were astonished. Why now, when I wasn’t looking for a new career? My answer was threefold: My husband and I would soon be entering empty nestdom, so it seemed a good time to fill it; I had always done everything late in life (marriage at 34, first child 39, braces in my 40s); I regretted not having had a real campus experience. Now that I am educationally embedded, folks generally first say, as did writer-publisher-Harvard grad James Atlas, “I wish I could go back, when I know so much more about life. Books grow with us.” Such sentiments are quickly followed by, “But I could never take a test or write a long paper.”

I am clearly not alone in my quest for academic validation: Well over half a million of the students enrolled in degree-granting institutions are over the age of 50. “One advantage about returning to college later in life is that the student will likely have a greater sense of purpose and focus and thus be able to capitalize better on what is offered,” says Margaret Gatz, a psychology professor at University of Southern California. “Another advantage is that the older student brings a lifetime of experiences and knowledge to the new information being presented and thus can have a richer learning experience.”

Gatz points out potential barriers, including competing demands. (Every time I tell my adviser that I can’t imagine how students could be taking four, even five classes at a time, he reminds me they are not also running a household and writing plays. Oh, that.) Another hurdle might be physical stamina. “The older student will be surrounded by college-age youth who have agile memories and who can stay up all night to cram for an exam or finish a paper,” says Gatz. “This just means that the older student must be craftier.”

Fortunately, there is increasing evidence that older students can succeed and that it will even keep our minds sharper. “There is as much variation in an aging brain as there is in a school child’s brain,” says New York psychiatrist Roger Gould. “If you and your brain are healthy, the only limitations to learning new mental skills and information are your motivation and natural intelligence.”

James Fallon, a neuroscientist at University of Irvine, claims “people are at their maximum cognitive abilities are in their 60s. It’s the ideal time to balance their executive functions, which younger students don’t necessarily have yet, with intellectual techniques which are likely still there but haven’t been used for a long time.” Fallon, who is 66, says, “I have never been more creative and productive.”

Fallon’s views are corroborated by the Seattle Longitudinal Study, which tracked the cognitive abilities of thousands of adults over 50 years. The report shows that middle-aged adults performed better on four out of six tests than they did as young adults. Likewise, University of Virginia psychology professor Timothy Salthouse last year completed a comprehensive study entitled Consequences of Age-Related Declines and concluded, “cognitive ability is important in daily life and there is currently little evidence that its importance declines with increasing age. In fact, there are some reasons to expect that the role of cognitive ability in late adulthoods is even more important now because individuals of all ages are being asked to take more responsibility for financial and medical decisions.”