Alumni return to college towns for retirement

updated 4:59 p.m. ET March 17, 2005

When Jim Davis graduated from Pennsylvania State University, he figured he was leaving for good. But more than 50 years later, he's back, this time for retirement.

"They all think we were crazy for coming back up here," Davis said, of the friends he and his wife, Jo Anne, left behind in their first retirement destination, a gated subdivision built around a golf course in North Carolina. "But it was the best decision we ever made."

The couple’s move to State College, Pa., two years ago makes them part of a small but fast-growing group of seniors enticed back to their alma maters by a new generation of retirement communities opening on or near college campuses.

While private developers have been building such projects for several years, universities and colleges themselves are playing an increasing role, seeking new sources of revenue and a way to cement ties with alumni.

Retirees — most of them graduates of the schools, former faculty or people who already lived nearby — are drawn by the flurry of activities in college towns, the chance to continue learning and life alongside like-minded adults.

"There are a number of people who look for something other than a condo on the fifth green and a warm climate," said Leon Pastalan, director of the National Center on Housing and Living Arrangements for Older Adults at the University of Michigan. "They're looking for something more stimulating and that's what a college campus can provide."

Fast-growing idea
The first college retirement communities opened about 20 years ago, but the idea has really spread in the last three or four years, Pastalan said. There are at least 50 such developments near campuses around the country, from those near large schools like Duke University and the University of Michigan, to smaller schools like Lasell College in Newton, Mass.

Some of the newest are those under way near Stanford University and the University of Alabama. About 10 to 15 others are in the planning stages, Pastalan said.

While four-year schools have led the way, community colleges also are beginning to explore such developments, seeing them as an extension of their existing work with older adults and continuing education, said Gerard Badler, managing director of Campus Continuum LLC, a Newton, Mass. developer and consultant.

The projects vary widely. Some are condominium developments, frequently built with community centers onsite. Others are so-called continuing care retirement communities — combining apartments with assisted living and nursing home facilities, designed to accommodate people from early retirement through their later years.

College perks
That combined offering was one of the selling points for Jim and Jo Anne Davis — he's 74, she's 73 — who were concerned about finding a way to retire without burdening their adult children with future elder care responsibilities.

The couple, Pennsylvania natives, first looked for something near their first retirement home in Wrightsville Beach, N.C. But an article in an alumni magazine about The Village at Penn State, then in construction, drew them back to campus for a visit. They quickly signed up, moving in to a two-bedroom apartment with a view of the school's mammoth football stadium and nearby Mount Nittany.

They've quickly settled into a lifestyle more active than before they retired, Jo Anne Davis said. The couple regularly attend football games and campus performances. She is active in onsite activities like a women's crafts group, and twice weekly water aerobics classes at the university's swimming pool.

"When you get out of the bus and there are all these kids walking around, it just makes you feel so alive," she said.

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