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While lifelong learning is held up internationally as a key idea in knowledge societies – which are also trying to cope with the challenge of ageing by promoting the concept of active ageing – a weakening of education related to ageing is observed. However, for more than 30 years, retirees have shown a keen interest in learning in various institutional environments: at universities of the third age, but also at mainstream universities. Paradoxically, few sociological studies have dealt with this emerging social reality. This author wishes to shed light on the phenomenon, the forms and practical modalities of which are becoming increasingly complex. This article proposes a combined analysis of individual experiences of ageing and learning. The first section addresses the transition phase to retirement and the circumstances that prompt retirees to engage in education before or after retirement. The author recounts the differentiated relationships with education (learning for knowledge, to make oneself useful and remain active, or to change career). The second section examines the importance of institutional environments (universities versus universities of the third age) and their specific temporalities on the experience of self-maintenance through education, which emerges as a key strategy for coping with the tribulations of ageing. The last section is devoted to the different types of leaving education: due to old age, a sense of intellectual satisfaction, or a career change goal that imply completing a course.