Ask HN: How did you start higher education after 40?

>If someone's trying to change fields into one that requires a credential.

If you need credentials then somebody needs to care about those credentials which means that you will be someone's employee. You will be stuck on what MJ DeMarco calls the slow lane. Even more so if you get into debt because of it. Howerver, I think big discoveries, money or writing a bestselling book do not care about your credentials. You can achieve higher education and big success on your own.

I like this approach, but find it hard to deal with the somewhat inefficient tuition fees that you get doing one course at a time, at the school I've been to. The one course ends up costing quite a lot

I hear a lot of non-engineers say this. Talking about formal logic, and how philosophy and math were once the same discipline, how math proofs are akin to philosophical arguments etc.

I don't think this crowd would get much out of it.

My advice (I am doing this now) pick your profs carefully and talk to them about your situation. Some will love having you, and will completely understand that you are not in the same place as other students. Make sure the directors and supervisors of your program are happy to have you and know why you are there.

Some profs (usually younger!) have this attitude that if you come back to school you should be prepared to live just like the other students. They can have a bad attitude to you out of the gate, especially if you are financially more successful than them and have to occasionally make other things a higher priority. Unfortunately insecurity can be found anywhere. These people can be a real pain in the ass as a mature student and are best avoided.

So whatever you do, make damn sure your supervisor(s) want mature students! I am fortunate that mine are great - they love having me, and we've had frank conversations about how I will hand in A+ material every time, but sometimes I have adult responsibilities I have to deal with instead of making a class.

It's really nice not to be beholden to anyone else's funding. I pick my topics, I pick my thesis, I don't owe anyone anything there.

There are a lot of comments in here, but I will throw mine in.

I did the B.S. and M.S. before I was 40, but went back later to do the Ph.D. in my 40s.

I did not have family support. My SO was totally against this. As an engineer, sysadmin, physicist, I feel like I have a problem solving mindset. It took a lot of problem solving and ignoring to get over the problem of no family support (I do not mean financial, I mean "hey, don't go do that, its a waste of time, what is it for, you are too old, etc, etc". Find out early on if people around you support this, and what mindset you will have if they do not.

Financial. Can you afford this? You figure it out.

Academic... As I have worked at three universities, I feel like this is probably the biggest advice or question I would ask: Are you of the academic / research mindset? I am assuming you are going into a tech / STEM field and not philosophy or the arts, so this can make or break you. Some people are 4.0 students and suck miserably at research. Some people can teach well, and do not do research well. Some people do research well and can not teach. This brings about two questions:

1) What is your goal after the Ph.D.? 2) Are you good at research? Most Ph.D. programs are going to have you do a pretty significant breadth of research to graduate.

My advice: What is your main objective? Does that coincide with getting a Ph.D.? Are you good at research? Do you have support for this (if you have a SO / Family / Partner), as that can make it doubly tough.

Finally, when you figure our your main objective be SURE your advisor KNOWS what you want as your goal. Most of them either think "you are going to finish and teach" or "you are going to finish and do research" or "you are going to finish and go get a job". The courses you take, and the amounts of research/papers/teaching you do will impact which path you take. Do not that that for granted. Tell your advisor "my goal is X". Remind them of this from time to time, as they will forget. You do not want to end up graduating, looking your advisor in the eye as they are telling you they have a job lined up for you and saying "but I really just want to go be a professor at a university" (which is what happened to me, and frankly, I am not a professor, I am a staff person that teaches when we are short professors, but I can not get a teaching job, as I have too few papers written).

Hope that helps some.