Former U.S. Representative ROMANO L. MAZZOLI shows off his new residence on the second floor of Lowell House's I entryway.

On the second floor of Lowell House, a new student is unpacking for the coming year. He unwraps a computer keyboard from the T-shirt that swaddles it and apologizes for the mess of clothing draped over his bedframe. Some snack food—two packages of Ritz crackers, a row of oranges—adorns the mantle of the common room. Several toiletries stand like chess pieces on the linoleum floor tiles, and the open door to a coat closet nearby reveals a jumble of cardboard boxes.

When he arrived the day before, the student explains, the room was completely empty.

“We walk into this dorm room and there’s nothing whatsoever in the common room. Not a thing. Zero. No bedclothes on the bed.”

Within weeks, thousands of undergraduates will encounter similarly barren suites. But seeing the sparsely furnished dormitory room for the first time heralded the return of a lifestyle Romano L. Mazzoli has not known for half a century.

The former member of the U.S. Congress is returning to school at 70.

This fall he will start a 10-month program at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG), putting him on track to receive a Master in Public Administration (MPA) degree exactly 50 years after he received his undergraduate diploma from the University of Notre Dame.

The Kentucky Democrat—whose 24-year Congressional tenure included stances against both President Nixon’s Vietnam policy and abortion, denunciation of special-interest campaign financing and sponsorship of the Immigration Reform Act of 1986—spent three months last year as Visiting Fellow at KSG, where he led a discussion group on immigration.

That brief experience inspired him to enroll in the mid-career MPA program this year, he says.

“During my experience last year, I had wonderful, very positive and very contemporary relationships with the College students,” he says Tuesday, a day before his program’s orientation. “I’m hoping that experience will be similar to whatever I start tomorrow.”

The mid-career MPA program generally attracts students with a extensive professional experience after graduation. Few, though, can claim a career as extensive as Mazzoli’s.

“We get a lot of students here who have been out in the world, usually in government or government agencies. They’ve been out of school for a few years,” says KSG spokesperson Doug Gavel. “Obviously, the congressman is an exception.”

The average age of students in the program is 39, a year younger than Mazzoli’s youngest child. Mazzoli—who will be the oldest student ever to graduate from the Kennedy School, according to Gavel—admits he’s slightly nervous about studying beside peers 30 years his junior.

“It’s like anything else in life. You don’t want to be sticking out there like a sore thumb,” he explains.

But at the same time, Mazzoli, a spry and loquacious white-haired man whose shirt pocket dons a notepad covered in phone numbers, says he hopes to make an asset of his age.

“Because I’ve been around the track a few times—I’ve had the wind kicked out of me quite a few times in life and bounced back a bit—I’ll be able to give people some reactions to some of the things going on in their lives,” he explains. “I’m looking forward to that.”