Within academic departments, tenure, combined with age-discrimination laws, makes faculty turnover—critical for a university to remain current in changing times—difficult.

Even though age-discrimination laws often prevent mandatory retirement, twice as many say they were 'forced' to retire for one reason or other as those who said they were sidelined by illness.

Discrimination by age, long-term unemployment, the fact that they're now at the end of the hiring queue, the lack of time horizon just does not make it sensible to invest in them.