Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi wants to help you graduate. Students who started but never finished their degrees at TAMU-CC will soon get an email from the university asking them to return. The Texas A&M University System recently partnered with ReUp Education, a national organization based in San Francisco, to help ’“stopouts” finish their degrees.
“Sometimes, life just gets in the way,” said James Hallmark, Texas A&M University System vice chancellor for Academic Affairs. “But completing your college education will change your life. We want to do everything we can at the A&M system to make sure that happens.”
The emails are going out to about 13,000 students in good academic standing who have stopped attending any school in the TAMU system in the past five years. So far, about 200 students have signed up to return this fall.
One returning student, Hannah Connolly, 24, is now a junior at TAMU-CC pursuing a degree in psychology. She called her ReUp counselor her “fairy godmother.”
“She let me know, ‘Hey, I am here for you,’” she said. “She has been really sweet just keeping in contact with me.”
Counselors help provide a path for students to move forward in their careers. Using technology, data, and personalized coaching, they engage and help re-enroll students. They are available to answer questions about any obstacles standing in the way.
“Many students who leave school, leave simply because life happened,” said Shonda Gibson, associate vice chancellor of the Texas A&M University System. “ReUp is uniquely focused on serving this student population and is helping us to support these students from re-entry to graduation.”