New partnership hopes to reenroll 600,000 Minnesotans who never finished college

NINA MOINI: A new partnership is helping Minnesotans get their college degrees, if, for some reason, they couldn't finish before. Minneapolis College, Saint Paul College, and Metro State University are working with ReUp Education, a national organization that helps re-enroll people in college.

Joining us is Greg Mellas, who's Dean of Liberal and Fine Arts at Saint Paul College. Thank you very much for being with us, Dean.

GREG MELLAS: Hi. Thanks for having me, Nina.

NINA MOINI: And also joining us is Katy VanVliet, ReUp Education's Senior Vice President of Learner Services. Thanks for your time as well, Katy.

KATY VANVLIET: Yes, thanks for having me.

NINA MOINI: Katy, could you start by telling us a little bit more about ReUp and what it's all about?

KATY VANVLIET: Sure. Happy to do that. So it's helpful to have some background context, which is actually that there are currently 40 million Americans that have some college and no degree. Minnesota actually itself accounts for nearly 600,000 of those learners.

NINA MOINI: Wow.

KATY VANVLIET: And when you think about it, 36-- about 36 million of those students with some college and no credential are under the age of 65. That's actually comparable to the AARP. But this group has little to no representation or attention on them, really, to think about how to bring them back.

Because what I can tell you about ReUp is that we've been doing this for 10 years, and they want to come back. Many of these learners had something that got in the way the last time, and happy to share more about that. But essentially, ReUp supports them, reaches out to them, and asks them, do you want to come back? And then we get to learn more about them and ensure that they find the right path forward for them that's better for them, better for the school, and really better for the economy in which they're coming back to.

NINA MOINI: And what does that look like, Katy, in terms of how you help them to get back there and re-enrolled?

KATY VANVLIET: Mm-hmm. So we work with the school to understand who has a path forward. There are some students who may have left the university and gone somewhere else. But there are many that left or stopped out and haven't gone or returned anywhere.

So we begin our outreach, and it can be through a number of channels, including phone, email, and SMS, to understand, do they have an interest in this? And if so, what is their timeline? And then, what support do they need?

It's a combination of certainly the marketing but also my team-- really proud of this-- the coaches that personalize that support to understand, what else do you have going on in your life to better help you fit school back in? Because for many of them, when school is no longer there, they fit in a job. They're in what school time would have been. They have stuff going on with their children at night when they could have been doing homework.

And so you have to rearrange all of those things in order to fit school back in. And it's really not easy. And so we do have many, many learners that value the coaching support that's personal to them on the whole path back. And then we stay with them once they re-enroll until graduation.

NINA MOINI: Great. And so, Greg, in your role working with college students at Saint Paul College, has it been tough to watch people kind make it through some school and then have to take a step away? I mean, what's your perspective on that as an educator?

GREG MELLAS: You know, that's a good question. It is tough to watch. But we're also seeing a shift in the way students interact with college. So you're less likely to see, today, traditional students who, in the past, may have gone away for four years, completed a baccalaureate degree all at once.

Our students today tend to move back and forth between work and education, largely, because they have young dependents or aging parents that they're taking care of. And so to be able to maintain consistent enrollment remains the ideal. But it's just not a viable reality for some of our students.

So what's been powerful about this project and the potential that it holds is that it allows us the capacity to actually reach out to some of these students who have stopped out to find out specifically what was driving their decision to stop out and what are the real or perceived barriers that they hold that are preventing them from making that decision to re-enroll. Because the process for re-engaging a student and getting them to re-enroll is much different than the one for a student who's already decided they're ready to go to college and they just need some assistance with the application and enrollment process.

It's much more high contact, high touch. So this partnership with ReUp gives us the capacity to do that kind of outreach and to collect that type of qualitative information from students that we just otherwise wouldn't be able to get.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. And tell us, Greg-- I had never heard this term stop out. Can you just remind us what that is? It's very clever. It makes sense. But go ahead and tell us what it is.

GREG MELLAS: Sure. Well, I mean, it's distinguished from a dropout. I mean, we consider a dropout to be a student who has decided to leave and then does not return. But a stop out is just a student who maybe needs to take a semester off due to work or family reasons. Maybe there's transportation or childcare issues at play. And so they just cannot sustain that continuous enrollment. But they have every intention of continuing their progress and earning that credential.

But once they do stop out, they do-- their risk of becoming a dropout does increase. And so it's important that we stay in contact with them when they stop out and make sure they're aware of the services and supports that we might have available to help them ease the transition back into college.

NINA MOINI: And, Katy, can you describe why the merging of these colleges and universities in particular, Minneapolis College, Saint Paul College, and Metro State University?

KATY VANVLIET: Yeah, it's really important for some of the reasons that Greg actually mentioned. So we have learned that by pooling together some more schools, you can foster these transfer pathways. In this particular situation, you want learners and students and stop outs to go back and finish and get their associate's degree. And many of them actually, who we've already talked to said, yes, I plan to go on and get my next degree at Metro State, or I want to keep going and continue my education.

And so when you bring institutions together, a few things happen. Learners have the ability to figure out the best path forward for them at this time. As Greg said, some things have changed, right, at different universities, different institutions, where maybe they've adjusted their programs or their offerings. And so learners need to understand what's now available in order to pick the best path forward for them.

And then the other thing that's really great when you do this is that we can share some of the insights that we're hearing from the learners to share back with the schools, to say, here are the policies and the processes and the input that we're hearing in order to improve things, so that two things happen. One, you kind of stop people from stopping out or dropping out in the first place. And then improve the path forward for people, so there are less barriers in their way so they can come back.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. And, Katy, can you tell us a little bit about why that you all feel that it's still critical and helpful to get these types of degrees for people just for their overall well-being in the future? Because I think a lot of people these days are like, oh, do you really even need a college degree anymore? What do you think about that?

KATY VANVLIET: Yeah, no, definitely something that our coaches and everyone, you know, hears and talks through with students. I mean, what I would say is that the research still says that it's better to have a degree in terms of your outcomes in the future and in terms of being able to access a job and in terms of your economic mobility for not only you but for generations to come or your family and those around you.

So while that still holds true, some people may feel like, I'm not sure if that is the motivating factor for me. And so we also know that for other people, it's a personal mission, right, to complete what they started, to be a role model for others. We hear that actually at the top of the list for some reasons why people go back to school.

And so it's a very personal situation for some people to feel like they have confidence at their current job because they have this degree. So it really is a variety of reasons that we lean into. But for when people bring that to us, it's pretty easy for us to say, listen, this is going to be better for you in the long run. But we want you to think about your ROI, your Return On Investment, why you're doing this so that it's worth it to you.

And then for institutions in the state, I think it's morally the right thing to do because people have already put some money into their education in this situation. And they want to make sure they get something for it. But it also drives them up in the economy.

And right now in Minnesota, for example, they're saying and they're looking at there's probably only one worker for every two jobs that are out there at this point. And so it's not that people don't want those jobs. It may be that they don't have the current education or skills necessary. And so we do see a connection for sure with these learners and going and getting their degree and more positive outcomes.

NINA MOINI: OK. And I'll kick the last question over to you, Greg. So it's a pilot program, right? It's in its first year. What are you looking for in terms of ways to make sure that it continues to grow and is successful?

GREG MELLAS: Well, we'll be looking at the number of students who are able to re-enroll, complete a credential, and then transfer on to Metro State, ideally, or an upper division baccalaureate institution to complete that bachelor's degree. That is their initial intention. And so we want to help them realize that.

Not all of the students that we contact through this initiative are going to make the decision to return. But many of them, even among those, many are providing us with really valuable information about what those perceived barriers are for their return and what's motivating their inclination to return.

So, yes, career change, advancement in career is a motivator. But the number one reason we've heard from the students we've contacted so far is that they want to achieve this personal goal. It was an ambition they had set for themselves. They don't feel great about not completing it. And they want to do this for themselves.

Now, that's a powerful, intrinsic, internal motivation that we can tap into to help them find the persistence to make that decision and to sustain through completion. It's also critical for us to have them come back to the two-year institution and complete the credential, whether it's an associate's degree or some other certificate, prior to transferring, because the national data on this shows that students who complete a credential pre-transfer are 25% more likely to actually earn that baccalaureate degree after they transfer than their peers who don't.

So there's a science to this that we're trying to follow. And it's ultimately all intended to help the students achieve their objective of earning that baccalaureate degree.

NINA MOINI: Greg and Katy, thank you so much for stopping by and telling us about this program. Great work.

GREG MELLAS: Thanks for having us.

KATY VANVLIET: Thanks for having us.

NINA MOINI: Thank you. That was Greg Mellas, Dean of Saint Paul College, and Katy VanVliet with ReUp Education.