EWING -- It's never too late to go back to college. Just ask 74-year-old Barbara Stoffels, believed to be the oldest graduate in The College of New Jersey's history.
The Trenton resident completed her bachelor's degree in English in December, a diploma that was more than five decades in the making.
"I feel it's something that I had to do my whole life," said Stoffels, who will walking in her department's ceremony on Friday. "It's been hanging over my head as unfinished business."
Stoffels started her college career in 1960 at Douglass College. She got two years under her belt before leaving to marry her husband.
"Getting married put my life in a different course and I didn't get back to that part of it until fairly recently," she said. "But I've had quite a life."
Her second try at college came in 2003 when she enrolled at Mercer County Community College after being laid off from her job as an office manager.
But her attempt ended before it started when she was thrown off a horse a month before classes were set to begin. She broke her neck and required multiple surgeries.
"It took a decade of learning to live again," said Stoffels, who uses a walker.
But the third try was a charm. In the fall of 2010, Stoffels decided to return to school, inspired by her eldest granddaughter who was starting her freshman year at James Madison University.
"I said, 'If I don't do it now, I won't ever do it," she recalls.
She went to MCCC and graduated in 2013 with an associate's degree in communications. She then transferred to TCNJ in January 2014, majoring in English and minoring in women's and gender studies.
She said that sometimes on the first day of classes, other students mistook her for their professor.
"When you mingle the student population and incorporate older people like me who have more historical background than many of my professors, it shakes things up," she said. "It disrupts -- in a good way."
Stoffels says the classes kept her mind and body active and hopes other seniors could also experience college.
"There's programs for seniors to keep them involved and mentally alert, but holy toledo, all they need is one college course," she said. "The academic environment is a change, but once I got into the swing of it, I reveled in it and was happier than a pig in slop."
And Stoffels, who is chair of the Mercer County Council on Aging, says she has no plans to slow down. She is writing a play based on folklore and historical research, a project she expects to take at least a year and a half.
"Retirement isn't exactly a part of my mindset," she said.
Cristina Rojas may be reached at crojas@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @CristinaRojasTT. Find NJ.com on Facebook.