By Eric Hoover

Largo, Md.

The days inched by, each the same as the last. Retirement left Robert Monroe with little to do but sit around. Over time he felt his mind slowing down, like a wheel rolling to a stop. One day, he enrolled at Prince George's Community College, looking for momentum.

That was 2001, the year Mr. Monroe turned 62. By then each of his three children had enrolled in college, and one had already graduated. "I wanted to show them Dad could still do a little something," he says.

The adjustment was difficult. At first he had trouble seeing the text in his books; he would read by placing a large magnifying glass over each page. Math threw him, so he sought help, sometimes from instructors who just happened to be in their offices.

After he earned an associate degree in general studies in 2004, he felt good, but not good enough. He resolved to go further.

There were delays. He fractured his hip in a car accident. A while later he fell and broke his foot. An infection spread, and doctors told him he might lose his leg. Do anything but cut it off, he told them. Thirteen surgeries later, he could walk again, with a limp and a cane.

Eventually he re-enrolled at Prince George's. Now 70, he's close to earning an associate degree in criminal justice. He has no intention of finding a job; all along, he has studied just to study. "If I hadn't done this," he says, "I'd probably be out drinking or something, wasting money, wasting time."

Growing up in Washington, Mr. Monroe knew tough streets. Like his father and grandfather before him, he found order in the military. After graduating from high school, he joined the Navy, then the Air Force, and then the Army Reserves.

For 34 years he worked for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. As a bus driver, he covered many routes in D.C. and the suburbs. In his rear-view mirror, he saw all kinds of sights: women changing their babies on seats, people urinating on the floor, and worse. He learned when to look away and how to handle riders who refused to pay their fares—sometimes you just have to let them on.

Later, as a supervisor, he kept things running when buses broke down and drivers called in sick. He wrote up accident reports and checked the manifests. Each day he heard the clink of all the quarters, dimes, and nickels that his employees loaded on and off each bus.

A long time ago, Mr. Monroe dated a woman with a master's degree. Go to college, she told him. Over the years he weighed that advice against what he already had. His pay was good and so were his benefits. In 1975 he got married and bought a house in Maryland. He had the time to read, play basketball, fix old cars, and watch the Redskins on Sundays. He saved like mad.

What would he need a degree for?

Somewhere to Be

Now, there's an answer. Three days a week, Mr. Monroe has somewhere to be, a schedule to keep.

On a Friday in October, he takes a front-row seat in his police-management class just before noon. The rest of the students are young enough to be his grandchildren. Class begins with a quiz, and the room is quiet until two young men arrive 10 minutes late, their high-top sneakers squeaking on the floor.

The instructor, W. Corey White, shakes his head. This afternoon he had planned to discuss Chapter 8, on planning and decision making in law enforcement. Instead he lectures them on the importance of meeting day-to-day responsibilities, like getting to class on time. Asked why he was late, one of the students says that he had dropped a carton of eggs on the kitchen floor, which took him 15 minutes to clean up.

This explanation prompts laughter, but not from Mr. White. "When do you need to plan ahead?" he asks the class. He repeats the question. "At all times," Mr. Monroe says quietly.

Sometimes, moments like this frustrate him. Mr. Monroe likes most of the students he meets at the college, but some don't seem to take their education seriously. His nerves get raw when people chatter during class or ask the same questions again and again. Over the years he's stood up more than once to ask his classmates to please quiet down.

Otherwise, he has no complaints, except about the cost of textbooks, like the one on police administration, which set him back $126. When he studies, he reads everything twice, copying some passages onto notebook paper. When instructors talk, he listens for clues about the questions that might appear on tests.

These days, his mind's rolling along again. He's taken every geography course the college offers, reading all that he could about the slow dance of tectonic plates, the way streams form. He has a 2.6 grade-point average, and his wife, Levon, is proud of him. Often he attends campus lectures. "I need all the extra credit I can get," he says.

After this semester, Mr. Monroe will need to pass two more courses to earn his second degree. He has considered transferring to the University of Maryland University College to pursue a bachelor's degree, but then again, he might just stay here and study something else. Business, he figures, or maybe management.

This afternoon, it's time to think about next week's midterm exam. After class, Mr. Monroe packs up his books and shuffles through the crowded hallways. "Excuse me, excuse me," he says as he passes through a boisterous throng of students. He plans to drive home, check his stocks, and spend an hour or two studying.

On his left hand he wears a gold band with a bright blue stone. It's his class ring, just five years old.