ABSTRACT
Community colleges have a rich history of serving the needs of the larger community and responding to the needs of diverse learners, particularly adult learners. The growing interest in the promise and practice of older adult learning appears to stem from the graying of society coupled with the impact of the baby boomers. Because this demographic receives little attention in the community college education literature, this chapter focuses on older adult learning in the two-year context. Community colleges in particular can better position themselves to bolster enrollment and increase revenues by expanding their lifelong learning programs. The benefits of learning are positively correlated with psychosocial, intellectual, and interpersonal gains. Despite the growing number of initiatives by community colleges to attract older adult learners, too few older adults are taking advantage of formal and informal opportunities for learning, and there is a lack of participation by diverse older learners.
