Amid program success, advocates seek to lower program minimum age to 21
The Michigan Reconnect Program started in 2021 with the goal of increasing community college enrollment and graduation in Michigan. Now advocates want to lower the minimum age for application from 25 to 21.
In December, Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed two bills into law that shift reporting requirements of a free statewide community college tuition program and allow more flexibility in how students schedule their classes, with the goal of increasing participation in the Michigan Reconnect program.
The program has thus far seen support from community college leaders, both sides of Michigan’s state government, and the community at large. The Michigan Reconnect program launched early on in 2021, and has been a success according to the numbers. As of late December 2022, Michigan has accepted over 110,000 Reconnect applications and enrolled 22,000 students with over 1,500 earning some sort of credential.
The Michigan Reconnect program was set up to stabilize a declining enrollment trend in Michigan’s community colleges, by incentivizing adults 25 years or older to return to school to earn a certificate or degree.
MiBiz quoted Brandy Johnson, who serves as the president of the Michigan Community College Association, on the impact the Michigan Reconnect program has had on the state: “But for Reconnect, our enrollments would be in a world of hurt, largely just due to some demographic problems we’re having as a de-populating state and particularly as it relates to the traditional K-12 student pipeline. Each and every year we’re seeing a smaller graduating class of high school students, and we’ve experienced enrollment decline from those traditional-age students who are 18 or 19 years old. But despite that, our enrollments have held on average relatively steady year over year between the fall of 2021 and fall of 2022.”
Johnson went on to say that the increasing number of adult students has caused community colleges across the state to reevaluate their student services strategies, like wraparound support for services like transportation, child care, and “just flexibility around the community college experience.”
“Their work responsibilities have forced colleges to think about those services from a different perspective,” said Johnson.
The Michigan Reconnect program functions very much the same as the Futures for Frontliners program, and is nearly two years old. The Futures for Frontliners program was designed to increase the skills of essential workers during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Michigan reconnect program pays for in-district tuition for adult students who are at least 25 years of age, and who do not have a degree.
In August, the Michigan government gave another $6 million to the program to provide wraparound grant support for students, meaning that other expenses related to education for adult learners like transportation, internet access, and child care could also be funded for students.
Recently, in December, Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed two bipartisan bills to retool some of the scheduling and reporting requirements of the program. The bills have made more incentives for community colleges to offer credit for previous learning, and to give students more flexibility in how exactly they meet the 12 credit requirements during the three semesters in a year. Johnson noted that one of the major changes is that now adult learners can revisit lower-level classes while also enrolling in credit-earning courses.
The Michigan Community College Association is planning to back a proposal that will lower the minimum participation age of the Michigan Reconnect Program from 25 to 21 years old. The proposal is not new, but was removed in the last legislative session by former state Rep. Thomas Albert, R-Lowell.
Community college administrators have seen the benefit of the Reconnect program even as Lansing lawmakers work to hammer out the details of the program.
Chris Barry, dean of student services at West Shore Community College in Mason County, talked about the program, saying, “I think it has helped students not only access education but in this post-pandemic world to realize the ambitions they had come to the surface from limited opportunities that resulted from the pandemic.” Recently, WSCC saw 60 of its 1,000-person class come through the Reconnect program.
Similarly, around 10% of Kalamazoo Valley Community College’s nearly 6,500-student fall enrollment class participated in the Reconnect program. Most of those Reconnect students are working toward degrees related to culinary arts, IT, health care, and business, according to Alisha Cederberg, who is KVCC’s associate dean for student experience.
“It seems like having this tuition help really does help students come to programs they want to pursue,” she said.
Cederberg also noted that the program is “definitely helping enrollment” at the school, especially after the learning loss suffered in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It really did offset some of the high school student losses we saw. It’s a huge help as far as helping to offset some of the impacts of COVID and losing some of those traditional-age students just with the complications of education during the pandemic,” she said.
Grand Rapids Community College has accepted 2,584 students into the Reconnect program, with 1,141 enrolling into the winter semester that began earlier this month. The rest will start in the summer or fall semester. Around half of the enrolled students in this winter semester are taking first time classes, with over 400 returning to finish their education after more than two years away from school.