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. The difference was that Alexandra was 21 and Ochs was 95. Her grandmother, Nola Ochs, was also receiving a degree that day.
At 98, she earned a master’s degree in liberal studies from Fort Hays State University. Her decision to move into student housing at 95 is perhaps the most striking part of the story.
“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. Speaking to CBS News, she recalled that she knew she was old when she arrived on campus, but chose not to dwell on it. And when asked about her experience as a student, she offered an even simpler explanation: “I was just another student. Three years after earning her bachelor’s degree, Ochs returned to the classroom once again. 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.
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. But the extraordinary part of her story was not simply that she went back to college at 95. Ochs first enrolled at what is now Fort Hays State University on April 19, 1930, when it was still a Kansas teachers’ college. At 95, she moved from her farm into a campus apartment and became a student again.
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. It was that she treated her age as little more than a number. 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. But rather than simply completing the remaining credits from home, Ochs decided to return to Fort Hays State University itself. 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.