Dread retiring? Colleges offer courses on life reboot

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Baby boomers heading to retirement but uncertain what to do next are being offered courses by U.S. colleges to help them reboot their lives.

Americans colleges are developing a nationwide program of courses to show some of the estimated 78 million baby boomers expected to retire sometime in the next decade how to find another job or volunteer work.

The American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), which has received a $3.2 million grant, said the aim was to help boomers make the transition.

"We know there is a need. Community colleges typically attract adult learners and a significant numbers of them are 40 or 50 plus," said Norma Kent, the vice president of communications for the Washington-based AACC.

Retiring boomers are expected to leave a huge skills gap that Kent said will be difficult to fill.

"We're losing our most experienced workers and there are not those there with the appropriate skills to take their place. It is a both a social and economic phenomenon and we think it is time for community colleges to help with that," she added.

The grant from The Atlantic Philanthropies will enable the AACC, which includes 1,200 community colleges around the nation, to offer courses that focus on retraining retiring baby boomers for new careers, volunteer work, or to enable them to pursue further studies.

"The programs we will be looking to expand or develop will be focusing on several of those areas. The notion is to help 60 plus people lead purposeful lives, however they define that," said Kent.

A survey by AARP, an organization for people over 50 years old, showed that about 79 percent of baby boomers intend to do some type of work after retiring.

"If you look at just the cost of healthcare alone, you can see that a lot of people either haven't prepared, or due to circumstances they didn't have any control over, do not have enough money to be able to retire," said Kent.