[rapjr9]

I got a job programming for a research group at a college when I was 40 and worked there for 20 years. The work was an education in itself. I built a Beowulf cluster, electronically herded cows, designed wireless sensor systems, built opportunistic sensing systems, worked on security systems, medical systems, and a lot more and was exposed to a lot more peripherally (sociology, psychology, medicine, robotics). I didn't work on a degree but if I'd wanted to they made it easy to do and other people around me did. In the years before I left a fellow in his 60's applied for the PhD program and I worked with him for some years. He got his PhD based on work designing secure wireless transfer protocols/systems using near field RF. What made it possible was our boss was willing to accommodate his life (daughter in school, family life, etc.) instead of demanding servitude like most advisors demand of their grad students. In part, age gets you some respect, though not all advisors will be willing to do that, so you would need to find a good advisor. If you work for them first for a year to two before starting a PhD that gives you chance to figure out if you are mutually compatible (and to get to know others in the department in case you are not.) Be warned though that academic work is very different from industry work. You may never finish most projects only building proof-of-concepts, and in some ways it's like being in a startup where you have to do some of everything (work with students, purchasing, web research, hacking hardware, grant writing, building slide decks, figuring how to do things no one else has ever tried to do with systems that were never intended for it.) Often paths are abandoned if they don't work out quickly. Student code can be atrocious and you may have to use and modify it after the student leaves. People come and go, projects come and go, funding comes and goes, nothing is permanent. As a grad student you'll probably have to do some teaching and lesson grading as well.