Worries and Fears about Retirement in Higher Education May Be Caused by Education

This item comes from an article titled Worried About Retirement in the newsletter Inside Higher Ed.

"In July, TIAA-CREF released a survey of employees in and out of higher education that found those who work for colleges and universities generally have high confidence levels in their retirement savings plans, and that they have more confidence than do the employees of the rest of American society.

While that's good news for academic employers, a discussion of the survey at the annual meeting here of the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources was not congratulatory at all. Rather, the discussion was about a general sense that academics may not be sufficiently informed to make the best decisions about savings (or to realize they have or have not reached their retirement savings needs).

Given the concerns at many institutions about whether the economic downturn has delayed retirements, many here said they wanted to be sure that employees were at the very least making informed decisions and, in best-case scenarios, feeling accurately confident about their post-employment finances.

Now why would academics have worries or fears about retirement? Perhaps worries about retirement in higher education may be caused by education.

Some of the following quotes about education may give some explanation.

#1 of Top-10 Education Quotes

I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.
- Michel de Montaigne

#2 of Top-10 Quotes about Education

The average Ph.D. thesis is nothing but a transference of bones from one graveyard to another. - J. Frank Dobie  

#3 of Top-10 Education Quotes

Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten.
- B. F. Skinner

 #4 of Top-10 Education Quotes

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
- Oscar Wilde

#5 of Top-10 Quotes about Education

I am inclined to think that one's education has been in vain if one fails to learn that most schoolmasters are idiots.
- Hesketh Pearson

#6 of Top-10 Education Quotes

The aim of all education is, or should be, to teach people to educate themselves.
- Arnold Toynbee

#7 of Top-10 Education Quotes

An education enables you to earn more than an educator.
- Unknown Wise Person

#8 of Top-10 Education Quotes

Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly. - Thomas H. Huxley

#9 of Top-10 Quotes Education

Americans believe in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week. - Evan Esar

#10 of Top-10 Education Quotes

An education obtained with money is worse than no education at all.
— Socrates

In short, if these people read The World's Best Retirement Book, they wouldn't have as many fears and worries about retirement.