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Record numbers of Swedish retirees are enrolling in a university run “by pensioners for pensioners” amid increased loneliness and a growing appetite for learning and in-person interactions
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- Title
- 'Keeps your mind alert': older Swedes reap the benefits of learning for pleasure
- Authors
- Miranda Bryant
- Published
- Dec 26 2025
- Word count
- 810 words
Not about the article, just context
This is not a University in the academic sense.
This is a brand of "studiecirklar" targeted at pensioners.
"Studiecirklar" is like an extended form of book clubs to study anything together outside of academia.
This was part of an early/mid 1900 movement called "Folkrörelser" (roughly translated to "Peoples movements") rooted in early socialistic organising intended to "better" the working class.
The movement also included unionising efforts, a non-religious temperance movement, sex education and similar things.
As with many revolutionary movements some non threatening parts survived and this way of self organising study-circles is one of them.
In modern Sweden these "study-circles" are often organised within "Studieförbund" which help with the bureaucracy and also collect and redistribute some financial support from the state.
This particular "Studieförbund" is politically unaffiliated, but there exist others that are affiliated unions, churches, etc
Since higher education is free in Sweden I have as a personal aspiration to complete all A-level courses. This fall (continuing this spring) I have been studying History A as a "distanskurs" (i.e. an online course). This specific course has a clear majority of older students. The format of being online and at an introductory level seem to attract quite a few interested amateurs that have gone elsewhere career-wise. The aspect from the article about the joy of learning for the sake of learning resonates with me. This is a major reason for taking these classes (in my case it also provides a bit of an external motivation that I need in order to actually study). I don't really see how the purported "ageism" plats in to any of this, but I do see how it can be fulfilling to lot "just" be a pensioner. Most people want to feel needed and work provides that for many people. Looking at work as purely a source of income is flawed IMO.
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I love that goal!
That it is possible to have such a goal is wonderful and warms my heart tremendously.
I think the article can be seen more as a way to point out that the current government is reducing the funding of the "Studieförbund", but also "Folkhögskolor" and other left-ish institutions, such as non-high culture, that we in Sweden are accustomed too financing together but that the right and far right want to dismantle.
Another possible interpretation could be that ageism is possible due to migration as we wouldn't be able to afford to be ageist if there wasn't more precarious people that underbid salaries.
That sounds really cool and I want to know more! What courses does that encompass? How many years (decades?) are you expecting it to take? Which subjects have you already done and what parts have you enjoyed the most?
It is an impossible goal to realize in practice, if I wanted to take all the available courses. Just searching the admissions website for entry level courses given at one of the bigger universities this spring there are +750 given that I could have applied for. Searching all of Sweden there are over 6800 entry level courses!
However, a lot of the classes are quite specialized, e.g. "3D data and visualization within archeology and cultural heritage studies". And while this could definitely be interesting I try to focus on more mainstream classes. I'm interested in studying some foreign languages like farsi, arabic and/or mandarin, but I won't end up doing intro-level courses for all available languages (there's just too many).
So far beyond my masters (mainly focusing on software engineering) I've concluded entry level courses in; physical and organic chemistry, philosophy, law, biochemistry, molecular biology, microboology.
I've also started a bunch of courses which I didn't complete in various subjects such as; social psychology, modern physics, microeconomics and a few others. Usually other life obligations take precedence over my educational ambitions.
I enjoyed the philosophy classes the most so far. There were a few different sub-courses e.g. in retoric and argument analysis which I think is useful for anyone to take. It gives you a nice framework for analyzing texts and arguments in general. The philosophy of the mind parts were also quite interesting to me.
I expect that I will not ever truly be done with this project, but the ambition is still there! I want to complete some introductory physics, some more maths, some economics and probably social studies followed by some literature or culture studies. I'll see what piques my interest! If I ever manage to run out of introductory courses in the main subjects there's a bunch of more specialized classes to take. Unless the political winds change significantly and they end up charging for access to higher education for Swedish citizens (I imagine and hope that would be highly unpopular) I imagine this as a project for life.