Postsecondary Funders Highlight College “Comebackers” In New Research
- CRIMSONBRIDGE WEB
- Oct 14
- 2 min read
As co-chair of the Postsecondary Access and Attainment impact group, Senior Program Officer Robyn Attebury Ellis opened the last Postsecondary Spotlight webinar of the year with a topic that has impacted nearly everyone in her family.
“Growing up in West Texas, everyone in my immediate family started school and then came back to school, after a long pause, after a career change, after raising kids, for so many reasons. Maybe that’s true for you or for someone in your family too,”
said Robyn Attebury Ellis.
This webinar series was developed and sourced from great ideas through Grantmakers for Education conference submissions. The October webinar featured new research shared by Sallie Glickman and Stuart Andreason of Burning Glass Institute and Saskia Levy Thompson of the Carnegie Corporation.
Among the learnings, these resonated with Robyn the most:
This Comebacker model shows how 38M people with some college breaks down – with 2.3M or 6% returning (…299K graduate, 874k are still enrolled, 1.1M stop-out again) AND 94% have yet to enroll.
2.3M people that reenroll and graduate – tend to be younger. Black and Hispanic adults are more likely to return than their White peers. Women account for 60% of all Comebackers!
Comebackers have more success in career-connected programs designed around the needs of working adults, and more comebackers are reenrolling at public colleges.
Speakers highlighted several opportunities to increase credentials of value in this work:
We are missing wage gain data for comebackers! It would be helpful to understand the economic benefits.
Our country has limited experience with degree apprenticeships, yet career-connected programs have seen success. This is an opportunity for employer-sponsored programs.
There are several reengagement program examples that can scale: community-based, apprenticeships, and new higher ed models.
More tools are needed to reengage and reenroll more than 6% of this 38M people getting connected to a credential of value.
To watch the recording, visit https://www.edfunders.org/impact-groups-postsecondary/.