• I've been a college professor for 20 years, and I'm seeing more Gen X and Baby Boomer students.
• The older students have a ton of life experience that they bring to the classroom. 
• I no longer lecture to the class and instead let the older students take the lead.

I've been a college professor for over 20 years in the field of medical sociology, and lately, I've noticed something different about the students in my classroom. An increasing number of college students aren't kids anymore; they're older — many of whom are my generational peers.

In recent years, there's been an increase in older adults, including Gen Xers and Baby Boomers, heading back to classrooms. This means many people in their 50s, 60s, and even 70s who, for various reasons, feel like the time is right to head back to school.

So, how does this impact my college classroom? It's changed the way students learn and the way I teach.

Older people are in the classroom for different reasons

Today's learners represent greater diversity than ever before, and they all come to class for different resons. The older students I've chatted with in my classes cited demographic and economic factors, such as increased longevity, delayed retirement, career reboots, and a genuine interest in the pursuit of knowledge. Some simply want to keep up with the times, which helps them create a generational bridge between themselves and their grandchildren.

Older students also say they share the same learning objectives as their younger counterparts — like career enhancement or a desire to increase their creativity at work.

Many are rethinking the social trajectory of aging altogether, promising to remain active contributors to the economy and society for as long as possible.

I quickly realized they learn differently

I've noticed that older learners engage in ways that are different from traditional college students. For starters, most of them have completed an entire life cycle in the workforce, raised kids, and balanced a household's financial budget. All of this arms them with practical skills yet to be cultivated among their younger cohorts.

All of this life experience has allowed them to develop what's called crystallized knowledge, or a form of intelligence that draws from deep pools of facts, much like a database. Information rooted in crystallized learning can be transferred to new experiences, situations, and ideas. Essentially, this vast mental library is a "superpower" acquired in our advanced years that these students use in the classroom.

Older cohorts, unlike their younger classmates who have an intuitive relationship with tech, are also more inclined to want to know why and how technology benefits them. Beyond this, they want to understand their education's inherent, lasting meaning. Acknowledging the way academic ideas and theories fit into a worldview paradigm is an essential and critical part of the learning process for them, I found.

It has changed the way I lead my classes

Having older students with a wealth of knowledge and experience in their back pockets has allowed me to move from a traditional "sage on the stage" model of teaching to a more modern role as a "guide on the side." So instead of lecturing at my students, I now act as a facilitator while my students gear the conversation.

Working in a more collaborative environment presents opportunities for older students to sometimes take the lead in discussions, positively influencing younger learners. In this way, my older students have become great contributors as I tap them for insights by engaging in the mutual sharing of knowledge, co-teaching, or harnessing the power of personal storytelling.

In turn, my 20-something students are eager to reciprocate by taking the lead as designated tech mentors.

I'm still learning to bridge the generation gap in the classroom

As the college student body diversifies, I am looking for new ways to break free from traditional college teaching because I need to reach a broader group of people now.

Education can be a lifelong pursuit that challenges each of us to move outside of our respective comfort zones. Unexpected and even unlikely relationships are often forged, encouraging us to find meaning in new endeavors. These transformative experiences make learning worthwhile for all of us — at every stage of life.

• A man said he killed his wife because he couldn't pay her medical bills, per a police statement.
• Ronnie Wiggs said he choked his wife and covered her nose and mouth, the police statement said.
• He faces a second-degree murder charge, punishable by up to life in prison, per Missouri law.

A man charged with strangling and killing his wife at the hospital said he did it because he couldn't pay her medical bills, according to a detective's probable cause statement.

Ronnie Wiggs reportedly told police he choked his wife and covered her nose and mouth to keep her from screaming while she was staying at Centerpoint Medical Center in Independence, Missouri.

She was there to get a new port for dialysis, per the statement issued by Detective Todd Winborn.

Winborn said Wiggs made the confession after being read his Miranda rights.

On Friday, medical staff at the hospital were alerted to a "Code Blue" around 8:30 p.m., local time. They found the victim unresponsive and with no pulse, the statement said.

The victim was not pronounced dead at the time but had no brain function, prompting medical staff to stop any life-saving measures, according to the statement.

The statement said that medical workers heard the victim's husband say: "I did it, I killed her, and I choked her."

Wiggs was subsequently arrested by a police officer working off-duty at the hospital, per the statement.

He admitted to killing his wife by choking her and covering her mouth and nose to keep her from screaming, before leaving the hospital, according to the statement.

He later returned with a relative, it said.

According to the statement, Wiggs told a police officer he'd tried to kill the victim on two other occasions while she was hospitalized, adding that he was depressed and killed her because he could not afford the medical bills.

Wiggs faces a second-degree murder charge and is being held on a $250,000 bond, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said in a statement on Saturday.

Under Missouri law, a person convicted of second-degree murder faces class A felony charges with penalties of up to 30 years in prison, or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Medical indebtedness is a growing concern for many Americans.

More than 100 million Americans, including 41% of adults, carried medical debt in 2022, according to a joint investigation by NPR and The Kaiser Family Foundation, based on a nationwide poll conducted that year.

Medical debt has surged over the last decade, becoming the largest source of debt in collections, per the National Institutes of Health.

As Business Insider previously reported, about a quarter of Gen Z and millennials are skipping rent and mortgage bills to pay off medical debt.

• Satellite images show Russia has stopped using the Kerch Bridge for military freight, analysts say.
• The bridge has been a key military artery into occupied Crimea and southwest Ukraine.
• But following Ukrainian attacks, Russia appears to be relying on other routes to supply its army.

Russia has all but stopped transporting military equipment via a strategic Crimean bridge, Ukrainian analysts say, based on satellite imagery.

In an examination of Maxar satellite images by open-source intelligence agency Molfar, analysts said that between February and mid-April, they saw no Russian freight trains carrying military equipment on the Kerch Bridge.

"This may indicate a reluctance on Russia's part to transport military cargo via the bridge after previous attacks and the use of alternative routes," Molfar said in a report.

It also said it saw no trains carrying military equipment on the bridge between May and September 2023.

Business Insider was not able to independently verify the findings.

But they appear to echo Ukraine's Security Service chief Vasyl Malyuk, who said in March that rail traffic had been reduced to a handful of passenger trains since Ukraine attacked the bridge.

The Kerch Bridge connects Russia to occupied Crimea by road and rail, allowing a direct path into the strategically crucial peninsula, as well as an alternative route into occupied southwestern Ukraine.

Built in 2018 following President Vladimir Putin's annexation of Crimea, the bridge is considered an illegal construction by Ukraine.

In the course of Russia's full-scale invasion, Ukraine has significantly damaged it twice. The first explosion, in October 2022, saw the bridge's road section collapse, and a subsequent attack in July 2023 using sea drones appears to have targeted its support struts.

Molfar's analysis suggests that the military usefulness of the bridge has been all but halted and that Russia is instead relying on land routes.

A brand new 450-mile rail line linking Russia's Rostov-on-Don to occupied cities like Melitopol is almost complete and "could pose a serious problem," Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said last month, according to The Telegraph.

Molfar CEO Artem Starosiek suggested to BI that rail targets like this may now be more urgent to strike than the Kerch Bridge for Ukraine.

A potent symbol

Despite this, Starosiek said that "if I had the possibility to push the button and hit the bridge, I will do it right now."

That's because of the significance of the bridge, and not its current military usefulness to Russia, he said.

The Kerch Bridge has considerable emotional value — both to Putin, who sees it as one of his key achievements — and to Ukraine, which sees it as a hated symbol of Russian occupation.

Ukrainian officials have long talked about destroying it entirely.

In February, Ukrainian naval commander Oleksii Neizhpapa said that the bridge's "days are over."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has previously pointed to the bridge's military use as a basis for designating it a legitimate target.

On Tuesday, in a post on X, Ukrainian MP Inna Sovsun said that claims the bridge "wasn't being used for war & therefore not a legitimate target" emanated from a "powerful" Russian disinformation campaign "to prevent the destruction of the Crimean bridge."

It's unclear if Sovsun was reacting to Molfar's report. She did not immediately respond to BI's request for comment.

Responding to Sovsun's post, Molfar CEO Artem told BI it is clear Molfar is "not on the Russian side" and highlighted the data behind the work.

"As a regular Ukrainian citizen, I really want to hit this bridge because it's in my heart," he said. "But I think sometimes it's better to do something with more influence right now, and we always have time to destroy the bridge."

• A recession by early next year could send stocks down 30%, says BCA strategist Roukaya Ibrahim.
• Continued unemployment and headwinds from China's limping economy will be drivers of a downturn. 
• Wall Street veteran Gary Shilling holds a similar forecast, he told BI this week. 

There are two factors signaling a recession by year-end or early 2025, and a downturn could spark a 30% correction in stocks, according to BCA strategist Roukaya Ibrahim.

The strategist said on Monday that the US stock market is highly valued, and growth the PE estimates will sink back to levels more in line with the five years before the pandemic.

"I think that raises the likelihood that they're more vulnerable to the downside. And our expectation if we do get this recession, late 2024, early 2025, the S&P 500 is most likely going to fall to around 3600," Ibrahim told Bloomberg TV on Monday.

According to Ibrahim, Friday's so-so jobs report for April, which showed employers added 175,000 jobs and boosted confidence in the soft landing narrative, actually contained worrying signs of a weakening economy. A closer examination of the report shows lower job openings, hires, and quit rates, signaling a shift in the narrative toward a recession.

"I think that there's still a runway for the soft landing narrative to continue over the coming months," she said. "But eventually, the unemployment rate is going to take higher and that's going to lead to concerns about a recession."

Another major headwind will blow in from China, where the government is unlikely to inject a large stimulus into the struggling economy, she said. 

"[Chinese policymakers] haven't really signaled that there's going to be enough stimulus to really revive the Chinese economy. And so any sort of recovery that we see in the near term in terms of the global manufacturing cycle, that's going to be short-lived," she said. 

Meanwhile, Ibrahim noted that China's impact on the US economy pales in comparison to its effect on Europe, but hurdles in European countries are going to prevent any durable recovery in global manufacturing.

"The euro area will not be able to escape a recession if the US falls into it, so this is a global phenomenon that we're expecting," she said. 

Ibrahim isn't alone in calling a recession and a steep plunge in the stock market.

Wall Street veteran Gary Shilling, known for predicting the mid-2000s mortgage bubble, is also forecasting a 30% stock market crash by the end of this year, with a recession likely to crush speculative bets that have piled up in recent years.