How old is too old?

I tried to write something about this last night, but it got too confused. A number of years ago the department that was associated with my grad program was disbanded because of a lawsuit. This week the U. paper reported that the last professors that had been teaching undergrad classes in the discipline were retiring and so the classes would no longer been offered. Now I had found out about this several months ago, but all my friend who aren't in the grad program just read about it in the paper. So everyone is asking me if I'm worried.

This turn of events isn't a surprise. After the lawsuit, the agreement was that those professors would go on teaching those classes until they retired and then the university would cancel them. The bigger problem is whether the grad program will eventually be dissolved as well. Partly I think it should, because the university gives it no support and most students could enroll in other programs just as easily. But I'm not sure what that would mean for me. Do I want to get a PhD from a program that is currently self distructing? Also, my speciality is really a related discipline, so maybe I should switch programs so that I am properly positioned in the correct discipline. The problem is that I'm already in my early thirties, if I finish an MA and move on to a PhD program I could be in grad school until I'm forty. It seems that I would be at a disadvantage when competing against other candidates 10-15 years younger.