70-Year-Old Grandpa Goes Back To School As Grade 7 Student To Finish High School – Proving It’s Never Too Late To Chase Your Dreams

July 8, 2025
|In Health
|By Prince Ea

We live in a world that constantly reminds us to “move on,” “grow up,” and “let go” of the dreams we didn’t achieve when we were young. The clock ticks, society whispers, and somewhere along the way, many of us begin to believe that if something didn’t happen by a certain age, it was never meant to be. But every so often, someone defies that narrative—and in doing so, reminds us that possibility has no expiration date.

This is the story of a 70-year-old man who returned to the seventh grade to finish high school. It’s also the story of Ou Sus Ben, a 71-year-old woman from South Africa who chased her lifelong dream of education after a lifetime of struggle. These aren’t stories about school—they’re stories about spirit. About the courage to begin again, the strength to reclaim lost parts of ourselves, and the quiet power of saying, “It’s not too late.”

When Life Delays the Dream, But Doesn’t Destroy It

What happens when life gets in the way of our dreams? For most, the answer is to bury them beneath the weight of responsibility and time. But for Ou Sus Ben, a 71-year-old woman from a small town in South Africa, her dream never died—it just waited. As the eldest child in a Nama family, she grew up under the harsh grip of apartheid, where opportunity was rationed by race and background. Her family lived in makeshift homes, sleeping on animal hides, and like many girls of her generation, she left school early to support her family. At just 15, she traded classrooms for kitchens, becoming a cleaner and caretaker to ensure her siblings had food and clothes. Her dream of becoming a teacher faded, but it never fully left her.

Decades passed. She worked different jobs and eventually became a librarian’s assistant—a role that kept her close to knowledge, even if it wasn’t quite her dream. After retirement, she spent years caring for grandchildren, but something inside her remained unsettled. At the age of 68, she made a decision most would consider unthinkable: she re-enrolled in school. She studied matric biology and English, despite never having taken the subjects before, and despite English being her third language after Khoekhoe and Afrikaans. On exam day, she discovered she was registered as a native English speaker and would be tested accordingly. She had two choices: walk away and fail automatically, or attempt to interpret Shakespeare and Chaucer in a language she had mostly taught herself. She chose to try—and she passed.

Her success didn’t come from talent alone, but from persistence, grit, and a deep respect for the power of learning. She had grown up in a broken family, under a system that saw her as less than human, and yet, she didn’t let those facts define the limits of her future. Ou Sus Ben’s story is more than inspirational—it’s instructional. It teaches us that the road to our dreams may be long and uneven, but detours don’t mean dead ends. Age didn’t stop her. Circumstance didn’t stop her. What guided her back to the classroom wasn’t convenience, but conviction. And that’s what makes a dream worth chasing.

The Courage to Begin Again

Starting over isn’t easy—especially when the world doesn’t expect you to. It’s one thing to chase a dream as a child, when time seems infinite and mistakes are just part of the process. But to begin again at 68, to step back into a classroom after more than five decades away, takes a different kind of bravery. It requires humility—the willingness to be a beginner again—and courage to face the possibility of failure in front of others who may be half your age. That’s the kind of courage Ou Sus Ben embodied when she re-enrolled in school, not to impress anyone, but to honor a promise she had once made to herself.

It’s easy to assume that learning belongs to the young, that dreams have expiration dates, and that once a path is lost, it’s lost forever. But every now and then, someone like Ou Sus Ben comes along and breaks that illusion wide open. She didn’t go back to school because someone gave her permission. She went because the desire to grow didn’t end with age—it deepened. The idea of sitting in a classroom again, of being graded, of studying late into the night after decades away from textbooks, would terrify most people. But she wasn’t chasing a grade—she was chasing meaning.

That kind of intentional living is rare. It reminds us that starting over is not a sign of failure—it’s a form of strength. To reimagine what’s possible in the second or third act of life, to take risks when it would be easier to stay safe, is a revolutionary act. And it’s not just about one woman or one decision—it’s about recognizing that growth is not linear, and it doesn’t stop just because you once had to stop. The courage to begin again is one of the most powerful forms of freedom we have. And it’s never too late to claim it.

Education as Liberation, Not Just Learning

For many, education is viewed as a stepping stone to a job, a better income, or a promotion. But for others—especially those from historically marginalized communities—it is something far more profound. It’s liberation. It’s healing. It’s a reclamation of power that was once systematically denied. Ou Sus Ben understood this in her bones. She didn’t just want to learn biology or pass English; she wanted to reclaim something that was stolen from her as a young girl under apartheid. Education had been a door slammed shut by systems of oppression and poverty, and going back to school was her way of forcing that door open—not just for herself, but as a symbol for anyone who’s ever been told, “This isn’t for you.”

As a member of the Nama people—descendants of Southern Africa’s original inhabitants—Ou Sus Ben’s entire life was shaped by policies that treated her identity as something to be erased or ignored. Her childhood was spent in collapsible houses, sleeping on animal skins, her community routinely pushed to the margins. The apartheid system didn’t just deny her a chance at education; it denied her the right to dream freely. Going back to school was not about catching up. It was about pushing back. It was her refusal to let society’s limitations define her self-worth. In that classroom, surrounded by people far younger and shaped by entirely different lives, she didn’t just study—she stood tall. She became a quiet revolution wrapped in humility, living proof that dignity can be reclaimed, even after decades of delay.

This is the often-unspoken power of education—it’s not just what you learn, it’s who you become in the process. For someone like Ou Sus Ben, every chapter she read, every exam she completed, every subject she wrestled with, became an act of resistance. She was reclaiming her time. Her identity. Her possibility. In a world that still makes assumptions about who education is “for,” her journey reminds us that learning can be a form of protest—and every classroom can be a battlefield where stereotypes are shattered and legacies are rewritten. Because when education becomes a tool for liberation, it doesn’t just change the student—it changes the story.

Dreams Evolve, But the Pursuit Still Matters

We often imagine our dreams as fixed destinations—clear, sharp, and unchanging. But the truth is, dreams evolve. Life has a way of bending the road, reshaping our paths, and sometimes forcing us to let go of what we once envisioned. For Ou Sus Ben, the original dream was to become a teacher. That vision never fully came to life. She never stood at the front of a classroom with a chalkboard behind her and a room full of students listening. But the essence of that dream—to learn, to grow, to stand tall in the light of knowledge—never left her. It just transformed. And in the end, what mattered most wasn’t the title she didn’t get, but the courage she showed by still chasing what it represented.

When we measure dreams only by outcomes, we miss the deeper meaning behind them. Success isn’t always about arriving—it’s often about the movement itself. Ou Sus Ben may not have become a certified teacher, but she became something arguably even more powerful: an example. A reminder. A living story that says, “You still can.” Her return to school later in life didn’t just give her the chance to learn—it gave her peace. It healed the grief of lost opportunity, reconnected her to a part of herself that had long been buried beneath duty and sacrifice, and showed those around her—especially her grandchildren—that it is never too late to believe in something again.

That’s the real heart of any dream—not whether it turns out exactly as we pictured it, but whether it brings us closer to who we are meant to become. Sometimes chasing a dream leads you to the finish line. Other times, it leads you back to yourself. And that, too, is a kind of arrival. In a world obsessed with achievement and checking boxes, stories like Ou Sus Ben’s remind us that meaning lives in the pursuit itself. That even if the dream shifts, shrinks, or takes on a new shape, it’s still worth following—because who we become along the way is the real reward.

What’s Stopping You?

So now the question turns to you—what dream have you tucked away, quietly, under the excuses of age, fear, timing, or “real life”? What goal have you told yourself it’s too late to pursue? Maybe it’s not a classroom. Maybe it’s not a degree. Maybe it’s a book you’ve always wanted to write, a skill you’ve always wanted to learn, a language you’ve always wanted to speak, or a version of yourself you’ve always wanted to become. Whatever it is, let this be your reminder: it is not too late. Not if you still feel the pull. Not if there’s still a heartbeat behind it.

Ou Sus Ben’s story isn’t about going back to school. It’s about going back to yourself. It’s about refusing to be defined by the limits others placed on you—or worse, the ones you’ve placed on yourself. She didn’t chase her dream for applause or recognition. She did it to reclaim something that mattered. She did it for dignity. For peace. For the younger version of herself who never got the chance. That kind of decision—the quiet, personal kind—is one of the most radical things you can do in a world that often rewards comfort over courage. And make no mistake: it takes courage to begin again. But it also takes love. Love for your own life. For the parts of your story that still want to be written.

So, what if you stopped waiting for the “right” moment and started moving, even just a little, toward what still calls you? What if, like Ou Sus Ben, you decided that your dream may have taken a detour—but it’s still yours to chase? Start small if you need to. Start scared if you must. But start. Because the clock doesn’t determine what’s possible—your willingness does. And as long as you’re still breathing, the pen is still in your hand.