The increasingly severe population aging sets higher requirements for elderly education. A coping strategy in the era of active aging is to develop urban elderly education. Based on the theory of policy instruments, this study conducts an empirical analysis of 31 urban elderly education policies currently effective in the eastern, central, and western regions. It is found that urban elderly education policy instruments are structural, configurable, and regional. They highlight institutional justice on the value scale, seek endogenous development, and are oriented toward Nash equilibrium.Given the characteristics and values of urban elderly education policy instruments, it is necessary to optimize capacity-building tools and system change tools in the future to achieve high-quality development of elderly education in the eastern cities; optimize incentive tools and system change tools to achieve balanced development of elderly education in central cities; optimize capacity building tools and incentive tools to achieve the bottom line development of elderly education in western cities.