<p>If money wasn't a worry, can I do this. Stay in college for the rest of my life, taking whatever classes I want. Is this possible?</p>
<p>Another thing, I'm not interested in PhDs or anything of that matter. I just want the pleasure of learning.</p>
<p>Libraries are free</p>
<p>It’d be a large waste of money, and some schools kick you out after a certain amount of years if you haven’t gotten a degree. I know that my graduate school kicks doctoral students out after 9 years of study unless you get special permission to stay around longer (and usually, they’re long finished with their coursework - you usually finish coursework in your 2nd, sometimes 3rd, year).</p>
<p>I don’t know why anyone would want to take classes full-time forever, anyway. Taking a class or two every now and then, sure, I get that. But I’m going into my 13th and final semester of full-time coursework (8 undergrad, 4 grad) and I am SO glad it’s going to be over. Courses are great but I’m ready to delve into the ‘real’ work of being a scholar/researcher.</p>
<p>Apparently in the social sciences or humanities you can take a <em>very</em> long time to finish, and that’s “ok”. One of my political science instructors was perhaps 40 years old and I didn’t learn until much later that he was a graduate student who had been there since the early 90’s.</p>
<p>Don’t try that in the sciences, however. Every science/engineering department I know of will want to get rid of you pretty quickly if you’re not on track to graduate. I know my department gives you 7 years from when you pass your prelims to graduate, and most Ph.D students pass in their first or second semesters.</p>
<p>At some point you realize you’re generally better off self-studying than taking classes. Ungodly difficult problem sets get pretty old when they’re not teaching you what you want to learn and instead just slam you with boring math math math.</p>
<p>I understand why the initial poster asked the question. He enjoys the challenges of assignments and the intellectual nature of learning course content. Good on you. You can continue to take courses as a non degree student ad infinitum though there will never be a situation where cost is not a factor.</p>
<p>Yup, I would agree with most people here. Cost. Cost. Cost. There are plenty of online resources for learning, though. So unless you are a trust fund baby, it does not make sense.</p>