(U-WIRE) - University of Iowa graduate student Gloria Williams would be dead today if she hadn't enrolled in college.
The 57-year-old journalism student initially worked in a local radio factory, where she had to ask permission to use the restroom, after high school in 1968.
She just couldn't picture herself clutching a college diploma, and she struggled with the feeling her hopes were out of reach.
But Williams abandoned the blue-collar work force in 1977 to try her hand at higher education.
"If I had never gone to Kirkwood, I probably would have committed suicide," the Cedar Rapids, Iowa, native said. "I definitely would not be alive today."
For Williams, now a University of Iowa broadcast-journalism teaching assistant, education became her road to a better, and possibly longer, life.
Williams fits a growing trend, as more and more researchers point to education as the most distinguishable factor in the length of an individual's life.
Richard MacNeil, the UI aging-studies coordinator, said education may be more important than other factors such as health insurance, wealth, or dieting in determining longevity -- but only because it serves as a proxy of such other components.
"People with high education don't do jobs with bad environmental exposure," he said. "Education does nothing to change your biology, but it does change your behavior and what exposures you choose to put yourself through."
For example, people with more education tend to smoke less, said Robert Wallace, a UI epidemiology professor.
UI journalism student Sue Jorgensen said her own experiences are in accordance with the findings. She said that once she began her college education in her late 50s, she immediately began to feel healthier, adding she can now concentrate better and understand more complex theories with greater ease.
She is confident that her life will be extended because she chose to continue with her education.
"School has helped me to find ways to live longer," she said, noting looking forward to future education is one way she actively prolongs her life.
Feeling healthier because of a better education is common, MacNeil said.
"The more highly educated have a better sense of purpose in their life and a greater sense of self-fulfillment," he said.
People with college degrees are often awarded with a greater freedom at work, and they are able to participate in leisure activities that craft a more mentally stable individual, he said.
Regardless of the findings, MacNeil said, researchers never study the main factor of how long a person will live -- luck.
"You could perform all the healthy things and walk out and get hit by a car tomorrow," he said.
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