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Want to Work for Yourself? These Courses Can Help

New training options can help you start a business later in life

Jon Marcus,

AARP

Published September 14, 2026

a woman smiling in a storefront while flipping a sign to open

Woman in her 50s opening up small retail business, looking through glass door and smiling towards camera

AARP (Getty Images)

Key takeaways

More older workers are starting businesses, and many do so successfully by drawing on experience, financial stability and professional networks.
Programs, courses and mentors can help aspiring entrepreneurs learn skills, refine ideas and connect with potential clients or investors.
Free and low-cost resources, including AI tools, workshops and business counseling, can make starting a business more accessible.

Gail Snow Moraski was nearly 54 when, dissatisfied with her corporate marketing position after surviving a bout with cancer, she quit her job.

Armed with her MBA and career experience, Moraski planned to find another job. But then, having already occasionally freelanced, she decided to try something altogether different: working for herself.

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“I’ve always been a risk-taker,” says Moraski, now 65, who started a company called Results Communications and Research that has since served more than 150 clients. “That’s part of my personality. I’m not afraid to take a leap.”

Nearly 1 in 6 Americans over 55 who are still in the workforce are entrepreneurs, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, meaning they’ve run businesses of their own for the critical threshold of three and a half years or more.

“Senior entrepreneurship has significantly picked up,” says Christoph Winkler, a professor of entrepreneurship and innovation at Iona University and editor of Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy, the journal of the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship. “Older entrepreneurs are doing this more, and they do it more successfully.”

That’s in part because they often have many of the resources that it takes to successfully launch a business, such as financial stability, experience and professional networks. But the same things can be handicaps, says Winkler. “If you worked in a corporate setting for 40 years, you weren’t incentivized to think outside the box.”

a group of people sitting at a board room table while a man stands and faces them

From left: Emma Houston (Program Staff), Neil Urban- the individual with the back of his head showing (DIF Inaugural Fellow/Alumni), Next to Emma is Divya Chaturvedi ( DIF Cohort 2026-27), Susanne Kraemer (DIF 2026-27), Kathleen Adams (DIF 2026-27), Dr. Aaron Guest (DIF Faculty); Opposite side, first person by Neil Urban: Dr. Les Young (DIF 2026-27), Helen Hayes (DIF Ambassador).

Courtesy Arizona State University

Quick courses can help launch your business

Some older workers don’t have a choice, notes Elizabeth Miner, who helps executives move from corporate jobs to entrepreneurship. Growing numbers are being pushed out of senior positions by automation, layoffs and other trends.

“There’s a point where they’re frustrated and thinking, If [a new job] is not out there, can I create it for myself?” Miner says.

Other older workers who have made the leap say it gives them the freedom to pursue long-postponed passions.

“I finally have the chance to do what I wanted to do when I grew up,” says Neil Urban, 72, a longtime state and county planner starting a second career as a city design consultant.

The help Urban got to make that switch is an example of the support available to senior entrepreneurs, whatever their motivations for going it alone. He went through a new Distinguished Innovation Fellowship at Arizona State University (ASU) for people 55 and older, one of many programs aimed at entrepreneurial-minded older workers and retirees.

From left: Dr. Aaron Guest (DIF Faculty), Dr. Sian Proctor (Inaugural Fellow), Neil Urban (Inaugural Fellow), Dr. René Díaz-Lefebvre (Inaugural Fellow), Gabriel Bey (Inaugural Fellow), Dr. Kaden Sheffield (Inaugural Fellow), Helen Hayes (DIF Program Ambassador).

Courtesy Arizona State University

“If you’re younger, you get college and incubator programs and professors. But if somebody who’s 75 has an idea and wants to build something, it’s not a hospitable environment,” says Ehsan Zaffar, executive director of the fellowship, which is in its third year.

The program helps aspiring entrepreneurs learn what they need to know to start businesses; focus their ideas; and pitch to investors, venture capitalists and potential clients.

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Urban, who worked in government for most of his life, took a class in real estate development, for instance. “This was a skill set I needed,” he says.

His presentation landed him a consulting visit to Hong Kong, where he brought his idea for building cities up instead of out, with elevated plazas, parks and streets. “The first thing to do is to find a need you’re passionate about,” he advises fellow would-be entrepreneurs.

But learning the basics is essential, Urban adds. “If you’re going to be an entrepreneur, you’ve got to be computer-literate. You’ve got to have social media.”

Some of the options that help older adults start working for themselves — such as professional consultants and advisers — cost money. Others, including consulting with volunteer mentors, are free or inexpensive.

The yearlong ASU program, for example, charges $20,000, which includes auditing up to six ASU courses and being paired with faculty mentors. Scholarships are available.

Many business programs are free or low-cost for older adults

Another route: Career outplacement services sometimes included with severance during corporate layoffs increasingly include advising workers who want to become entrepreneurs.

The Entrepreneurs’ Organization offers tips and tools with membership, plus a chance to participate in executive education seminars at Harvard Business School and elsewhere. In addition to paying a fee, members are required to have annual sales of at least $1 million, though the EO posts information free online on a range of topics for entrepreneurs at any stage.

Short-term certificate programs in business topics are proliferating, many at community colleges. In most states, residents over 60 (or 62 or 65, depending on the state) can get free or reduced tuition at public colleges and universities. For entrepreneurs who haven’t reached those ages, the courses are usually inexpensive. The National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship has an online map of member campuses that offer entrepreneurship courses.

“Start with self-education,” online or by reading books, advises Donna Kelley, a professor of entrepreneurship at Babson College. “Then take one course about how to start a business. That might help identify areas where you need to brush up, maybe on marketing or financing, and you could take another course in that.”

The Service Corps of Retired Executives, or SCORE, provides free workshops, webinars, online guides and local networking events to small-business owners, plus an army of volunteer mentors.

Having mentors is essential, entrepreneurship experts universally agree. People who have them are five times more likely to follow through with starting a business and three times more likely to succeed in it, with higher revenues and faster growth, research shows.

Independent, nonprofit groups of mentors have been popping up in many cities. Many also offer webinars, which they archive online for people to watch any time, and some are in the process of forming a national consortium. One, Boston Business Mentors, plans to compile a directory of members.

The Workshop in Business Opportunities, a New York City nonprofit, offers a 16-week entrepreneurship program, after which participants can receive mentoring and coaching. A third to one-half of those in the program are 50 and older, says Ramon Gil, program and communications director.

Other resources include:

AARP Foundation Work for Yourself@50+, which offers online resources and in-person workshops to help older adults explore business opportunities
EforAll, a nonprofit that runs free 12-week business accelerator programs online, three times a year
Association of Women’s Business Centers, which supports women entrepreneurs
Minority Business Development Agency, which offers the same thing to racial minority groups
Veterans Business Outreach Center, which serves veterans, service members in the National Guard and Reserve, and military spouses.

Many local and some national banks provide free coaching. Wells Fargo and Operation Hope, for example, have teamed up to bring such help to underserved communities in 50 markets nationwide by the end of this year.

Using AI and YouTube to get advice

Free entrepreneur networking events are advertised on platforms such as Meetup or run by industry organizations. Local continuing education programs often include business classes. And many older entrepreneurs say they rely heavily on free online tutorials — and increasingly on artificial intelligence.

“There’s always something on almost any topic I search for” on YouTube, says Moraski, the marketing company owner. “And you can go into ChatGPT or Google Gemini and ask questions about anything. They’ll spit back the answer, and I get my task done.”

If you want to learn the basics of using AI tools, the AARP Skills Builder for Work resource offers a self-paced online course. (It’s free through Jan. 1, 2027.)

Technology has, in fact, “democratized” entrepreneurship, says ASU’s Zaffar.

“You can make things with 3D printers, record a podcast and put it up on YouTube, create software using AI,” he says. “You don’t need money or expertise as much” as in the past.

The first step is overcoming the fear of failure, says Elena Chernokalskaya, founder and director of Boston Business Mentors, who left her job as a biotech executive and started her own company designing tools for people who work with clay.

“Some people have a mental block: ‘Am I too old to do this?’ ” says Chernokalskaya, who says she is older than 60. “I tell them, ‘Live like you have another 50 years. Don’t overthink it. If you feel that there’s a need that you can fill, try it. What can you lose?’ ”

The key takeaways were created with the assistance of generative AI. An AARP editor reviewed and refined the content for accuracy and clarity.

Jon Marcus is a Boston-based writer whose work appears in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Boston Globe and other media outlets.

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