Colorado colleges have made progress re-enrolling students who left without finishing

“Sign up for our free monthly newsletter Beyond High School to get the latest news about college and career paths for Colorado’s high school grads. Fewer Colorado students dropped out of college during the 2023-24 school year and more re-enrolled than in the year before, according to recent statistics . But that bit of good news wasn’t enough to put a dent in the overall number of working-age Coloradans who have some college education but no credential. More than 623,000 people were in that category in the 2023-24 school year. That’s an increase of 9,300 Coloradans from the prior year, because more students left college without finishing than the number who returned. The data compiled by the Associated Press from the National Student Clearinghouse provides an important view of these former students, often referred to in the higher education community as “stopouts,” during a time when Colorado universities want to entice more of them to return. Some Colorado colleges and universities have increased efforts to help attract returning students who typically make less money than their peers who have completed a college education, while also often paying off student loans. Michael Galchinsky, Colorado State University’s vice provost and dean for undergraduate affairs, said it’s difficult to reconnect with students once they leave college. Students don’t finish college because of numerous reasons, including running out of financial aid. “Once they leave, they go out and they get immersed in jobs and families and other things that might make it hard for them to return,” he said. Nationwide, the number of students who never completed college grew to 38 million in the 2023-24 year. However, the national data analysis by The Associated Press also shows an uptick in the number of residents returning. In Colorado, university leaders partly credit Finish What You Started, a grant program that was propped up with pandemic relief funds and ended this school year, in helping former students return to college. The $49 million program provided students with financial assistance, scholarships, grants, and other aid to get them back to college. Students also received academic and career advising. From 2022 to 2025, the program helped enroll about 5,000 former students , with about half earning their degree. Finish What You Started has been more successful in getting students back to college than another ongoing program created at the same time called Colorado Re-Engaged . That program allows universities to grant an associate degree to former students who earned at least 70 college credits before dropping out. Those associate degrees also likely helped slow the growth in the number of Coloradans with some college but no credential. Metropolitan State University of Denver’s Vaughn Toland, the executive director of admissions and outreach, said financial assistance was effective in getting former students to reenroll. The school has prioritized some scholarship money for returning students now that Finish What You Started has ended. “Even $1,000 a semester can make a huge difference in terms of a student being able to come back to school or not,” Toland said. Toland’s office also has been sending out emails to former students who haven’t enrolled for at least a year to encourage them to reapply. And the school has other longstanding programs it uses to help Coloradans return, including waiving applications if they previously enrolled and helping returning students piece together credits into an individualized degree. At CSU Fort Collins, Galchinsky said the end of the Finish What You Started program is “a loss of resources, but not a loss in mission.” The university has a new scholarship program called the Green and Gold Completion Award to help students who got close to graduating but dropped out, he said. “We’re looking to make a home for every kind of Colorado resident here at Colorado State, no matter what your background is,” he said. “We’re going to meet them where they are and try to help elevate their lives.” Jason Gonzales is a reporter covering higher education and the Colorado legislature. Chalkbeat Colorado partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage. Contact Jason at jgonzales@chalkbeat.org .

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