Many worked through China's reform era and now hold financial security, control over their own schedules and familiarity with studying abroad after sending their children overseas, Sixth Tone reported.

China had passed 105,000 universities for older adults by the end of 2024, China Senior Daily reported, though seats remain scarce in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hangzhou and Chengdu.

Frost & Sullivan valued the commercial senior interest-education segment at CNY25.61 billion (US$3.8 billion) in 2023 and projected it would pass CNY40 billion by 2028.

Zhao, 54, enrolled at a language school in New Zealand after EF Education First assessed her at A1, the lowest level, and showed her an A1 textbook before she left China.

Every course available on arrival was above her level and the teachers spoke only English, she told Sixth Tone, and the lessons were completely incomprehensible.

Zhao had paid about CNY160,000 ($23,700) for tuition and an eight-month homestay after retiring from Shanghai's flower industry, hoping to gain enough English to travel while still in good health.

Zhang, 56, took a six-week course at the same school and described the pace to Sixth Tone as being asked to run before she had learned to stand.

Both women had wanted practical English for reading menus, catching buses and ordering food, but the classes covered history, biology and mathematics. Another Chinese retiree in the same course quit after three days.

Zhang studied until 11 p.m. and rose at 4 a.m. to prepare, relied on a translation app in class and still fell behind, and younger students avoided pairing with her for group work.

Yao Xiaoqiong, who heads New Oriental's Global Campus Center, told Sixth Tone that one- to three-year courses remain too demanding for most older students.

The company sells two- to four-week trips instead, he said, including art courses in the U.K. and cooking in France, with no language prerequisite, 10 hours of pre-departure preparation and interpreters on the ground.

By the end of her eight months Zhao had learned to manage the classes, found time to hike and made local friends through a church. She came through it mentally stronger, she told Sixth Tone.

Wang Xiaoxi, a Chinese woman, at her desk with her coursework and one of her cats. Photo courtesy of Wang Xiaoxi

Wang Xiaoxi, 58, was admitted to the University of Athens for a four-year bachelor's degree in ancient Greek archaeology, history and literature on condition she produce an IELTS score within three months, Xinhua reported.

Wang was born in Xinjiang, studied at East China Normal University, taught at a Shanghai high school and in Singapore, then ran a team at an advertising and media company before retiring from a publishing house, according to Xinhua.

Her graduation thesis, "God, Man, and Their Fate," earned a B, Xinhua reported, with the professor telling her the topic was too broad and that she needed another 30 years of life experience to finish the argument.

She found the Athens program in 2023 while staying at her family's holiday home in the city, Sixth Tone reported, more than three decades after that verdict.

Her daughter arranged a year of remote work in Athens, according to Xinhua, to help her prepare for IELTS and settle in.

Most of her classmates were born around 2006. Reading textbooks on screen made Wang dizzy, so she ordered printed copies and had her husband carry them from China.

She sat in the front row, stayed after class to ask questions, spent weekends catching up and used AI to review her exams.

Studying the Peloponnesian War, Wang told Sixth Tone, showed her the same pattern running through her own marriage, with one side preserving the existing order and the other trying to change it.

People had always defined her, she said, as someone's daughter, student, wife or mother.

"Now my definition comes from myself," she told Sixth Tone.

The program allows up to six years to finish, and Wang told Xinhua that graduating at 60 could let her sit the exam for an EU tour guide certificate and work as a museum interpreter.

People aged 50 and above accounted for 20% of study tour participants from China in 2023, up from 3% in 2019, according to figures from language-training providers cited by Xinhua.