Traditional retirements are now unusual among professors.

Press-Citizen reports.

Colleges face growing costs from ‘reluctant retirees’

Having worked 35 years at the University of Iowa, Betsy Altmaier was absolutely “ready for a new environment” on May 15, her last day as a professor.

With changes on the horizon in her field and college, Altmaier decided 2015 was as good a year as any to stop collecting a paycheck for her position in the Psychological and Quantitative Foundations Department. At age 63, however, she knows her decision to pursue a traditional retirement has become rather unusual among tenured professors.

A recent national survey by the TIAA-CREF Institute of 770 tenured faculty members age 50 or older found two out of three said they expect to work past normal retirement age or were already doing so.

If more of those reluctant retirees can’t be persuaded to retire closer to the traditional age, higher education institutions will face a host of inevitable consequences — costing universities and taxpayers more, while potentially doing a disservice to younger faculty and students alike, said Paul Yakoboski, a senior economist at the TIAA-CREF Institute.