When 21-year-old Alexandra walked across the stage at Fort Hays State University in 2007 to collect her bachelor's degree, she had a rather unusual fellow graduate beside her. Her grandmother, Nola Ochs, was also receiving a degree that day. The difference was that Alexandra was 21 and Ochs was 95. For Ochs, the ceremony marked the end of a journey that had begun 77 years earlier, when she took her first college course at the same Kansas institution in 1930. She had started her education during the Great Depression, then spent decades teaching, farming, raising a family and eventually returning to the classroom. By the time she finally received her bachelor's degree, she had lived through some of the biggest events of the 20th century. But the extraordinary part of her story was not simply that she went back to college at 95. It was that she treated her age as little more than a number.
Ochs first enrolled at what is now Fort Hays State University on April 19, 1930, when it was still a Kansas teachers' college. She went on to teach in rural Kansas schools before marrying Vernon Ochs and raising four sons. College was put on hold as family and farm life took priority. Decades passed. After her husband died, however, Ochs returned to her studies. She began taking classes part-time at Dodge City Community College while continuing to work toward the degree she had left unfinished many years earlier. Eventually, she discovered that she was only 30 credit hours short of a bachelor's degree. The finish line was finally within sight. But rather than simply completing the remaining credits from home, Ochs decided to return to Fort Hays State University itself. At 95, she moved from her farm into a campus apartment and became a student again. She took classes alongside students young enough to be her grandchildren, completing the coursework required for her degree.
Her age attracted attention, but Ochs herself seemed far less interested in the novelty of being a nonagenarian college student. Speaking to CBS News, she recalled that she knew she was old when she arrived on campus, but chose not to dwell on it. “When I came up here of course I knew I was old, but I didn’t pay attention to how old I was,” she said. And when asked about her experience as a student, she offered an even simpler explanation: “I was just another student.” Her granddaughter Alexandra was studying at Fort Hays State at the same time. In 2007, the two women graduated together, turning what might already have been an extraordinary academic milestone into a family moment. “I’m really happy to be able to do this with her,” Alexandra said.
For Ochs, the bachelor's degree was the completion of something she had started nearly eight decades earlier. At 95, Ochs became the world’s oldest college graduate. That is the part that made the news. But she was not finished learning. Three years after earning her bachelor's degree, Ochs returned to the classroom once again. At 98, she earned a master's degree in liberal studies from Fort Hays State University. She continued taking classes until she turned 100, eventually returning to her farm. By then, her academic journey had stretched across seven decades. Ochs had begun college in 1930, when the country was entering the depths of the Great Depression. She returned to higher education after raising four sons, losing her husband and spending years away from formal studies. Her story was not simply about finishing an unfinished degree. The bachelor's degree could have been viewed as closing a chapter that had remained open since 1930. But pursuing a master's degree at 98 made it clear that Ochs was not merely trying to complete something she had left behind. She genuinely wanted to keep learning.
Her decision to move into student housing at 95 is perhaps the most striking part of the story. She did not ask the university to make an exception for her or simply accept an honorary qualification. She enrolled, lived on campus and completed the same kind of coursework as the other students. The years between her first college class and her graduation were filled with the ordinary responsibilities of life. She taught children, married, raised a family, worked on a farm and dealt with loss. Her education simply waited. When she finally returned to it, she found that the classroom was still there. Ochs died in 2016 at the age of 105. Her name remains tied to one of the most unusual graduation stories in American higher education: a woman who entered college during the Great Depression, took a 77-year detour through life and returned to finish what she had started.
