97-year-old Australian becomes the oldest graduate

SYDNEY - A 97-year-old Australian man will set another world record for being the oldest university graduate in the world, local media reported on Friday.

Allan Stewart, from Tea Gardens on the New South Wales (NSW) North Coast, will become the world's oldest university graduate on Friday afternoon when he graduates with a Master of Clinical Science (Complementary Medicine) from Southern Cross University in Lismore in NSW, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reports.

His fourth university degree will surpass the Guinness World Record that Stewart set in 2006 when he completed a law degree at the University of New England at age 91.

Stewart completed his first degree with a Bachelor of Dentistry from the University of Sydney in 1936.

He later completed a Doctor of Dental Surgery degree at Northwestern University in Chicago, and practiced as a dentist in London, Sydney and the rural areas of northern NSW.

Stewart said that the fourth university degree may be his last.

"I can hang up my mortar board and academic robes after this one, although I said that after my last degree and then I got bored," he said in a statement.

"People should never use the excuse that 'I am too old to study ' or 'I have left my run too late'," Stewart said.

"It is never too late to expand your mind, make new friends and challenge yourself to achieve something worthwhile."

His lecturer Sonia Brownie at Southern Cross University said Stewart had studied mostly by correspondence online with good time management skills.