Eastern Michigan University

EMU engages 1,000+ stopouts in less than a year

Eastern Michigan University (EMU) is a regional comprehensive university located in Ypsilanti, Michigan. They are an institution committed to creating an environment of opportunity, where students learn in and beyond the classroom to benefit both local and global communities.

Challenge

EMU’s partnership with ReUp originated after an internal survey was conducted among their stopout students. The leadership team wanted to understand why this group of students left the university as well as their likelihood to return.

The survey results revealed a wide variety of reasons students initially left, which made it difficult to pinpoint one single initiative that could help bring them back. While EMU felt confident they could ensure successful outcomes once a student had made the decision to come back, determining how to engage their broader stopout population and holistically support their return at scale was a much greater challenge.

Finding the students who left

The first challenge they faced was related to finding the stopped out students, as many of them left several years ago. Generally speaking, ReUp finds that up to 40% of contact information is out of date within one term of a student’s departure, which can put a huge roadblock in the process for institutions. The survey gave EMU a sneak peek into the wide array of reasons for leaving, but many of their former students had moved or changed contact information, which prevented EMU from reaching them directly.

Support at scale

With the results from the survey fresh in mind, the team at EMU were aware that bringing back stopouts would require a lot of pre-work. Developing a comprehensive engagement strategy as well as working with each student to understand their goals and determine what they need in order to successfully return to school would require resources and expertise beyond what EMU was able offer internally for the volume of students they hoped to serve.

Partnership Overview

Partnership launched

graduates

March 2009

Stopout students engaged

graduates

900 +

Recaptured tuition

graduates

$ 0 million

Solution

Struggling with how to allocate time and resources, EMU sought out ReUp Education to help overcome their challenges. According to EMU, “Our interest in working with ReUp stemmed from the idea that ReUp has the staff and the expertise to coach students through that re-entry process. We were impressed with ReUp’s ability to do that.” The first step for our team was to find the stopouts where they are now. ReUp has the technology and tools to find and reach students where they are now, which drastically increases engagement rates.

With more students engaged, ReUp was able to collect additional insights about why students left, their motivations for returning, and the internal and external barriers in their way. Among the top categories for leaving, students listed reasons related to life balance, professional commitments, and finances. Every student ReUp reaches out to at EMU is introduced to a dedicated Success Coach who will offer personalized support.

ReUp started contacting our students about three months ago and there’s already been a pretty strong response to that. We have students who were contacted in March and April who have registered for our summer term and we have a strong list of students who intend to come back beginning [in] the fall. So I would count ReUp as being quite successful in addressing the needs of our students!”

Providing truly personalized support is essential to ensure students do not just enroll, but are able to overcome obstacles throughout their academic journey and earn their degree. Our patent-pending technology enables our team of coaches to use critical insights about each student to deliver high quality individualized support plans, while our Intelligent Queue™ helps our coaches to know exactly who is in need of proactive support each day.

Less than a year into the partnership, ReUp has engaged more than 1,000 students who have expressed interest in returning and recaptured more than $1.2 million in tuition. Our partnership is just getting started and we’re excited to work with Michael and his team to help more students finish what they started!

ReUp Education

ReUp Education partners with colleges and universities across the US to bring stopped out students back to school. Through a combination of data, technology and coaching, we improve enrollment and graduation rates for our partners while recovering lost tuition and increasing the earning ability of students who complete.

Let’s start the conversation

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