Go up to the comment of gbronner to which I responded. If people are bothered by the fact that retirees study and do their doctorates, they should ask themselves the questions I have asked. I think it's good if pensioners keep themselves busy in a meaningful way, as long as it doesn't put an additional burden on society. Imagine how much society benefits when pensioners use their time to study cell metabolism and use the vast amount of data available to discover connections and mechanisms that lead to new antibiotics or other useful drugs instead of being bored and spending the rest of their lives in front of the television. And unlike you, I don't think it makes any sense at all to let people study stuff that primarily costs society, both for the study and for the subsequent maintenance of these people. Enrichting the intelectual culture is good, but for this we do not need the legions of historians, publicists, media scientists or philosophers, or other fields of study whose sole purpose seems to be to create offspring of their own kind.