From a Washington Post story by Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff headlined “His PhD took 53 years. Now he has a new philosophy on life.”:

When Nick Axten restarted his doctorate in philosophy after a four-decade hiatus, he loved taking the hour-long bus ride to the University of Bristol campus each day. While he sat with his thoughts, others sat on their phones. He said the ride was a uniquely productive time to flirt with solutions to his work in his head.

Academia used to think bigger, said Axten, 76, and universities were more concerned with their students learning something new, rather than simply finding their next job.