Special promotional content provided by Madison College.
For many adults who have thought about going back to school, the question isn’t whether they want a college credential. It’s whether they can afford one while working a job and caring for family, alongside everything else. A new initiative at Madison College is built to help them do it.
Promise to Complete builds on the college’s existing Scholars of Promise Program to support students age 23 and older. It offers a last-dollar scholarship paired with academic and social support, with the goal of helping adult learners finish what they start.
“It is building on our existing Promise Program,” said Nicole Soulier, director of college access and experience programs at Madison College. “We have a Scholars of Promise program, which targets high school students. So we’re building on that to offer support for our adult students age 23 and up.”
Closing the gap
Promise to Complete supports adults who are starting or returning to college to earn their first associate degree or technical diploma. According to the Madison College Foundation, participants are independent, part-time students who live in the college’s district and are eligible for Pell Grants. The program covers all of Madison College’s associate degree and technical diploma programs that qualify for federal financial aid. Soulier said the college hopes to add more programs in the future.
Like Scholars of Promise, it is a last-dollar scholarship. Students first receive their federal financial aid and other grants. The scholarship then covers whatever tuition is still left.
“When federal aid and other grants kick in, the scholarship will help to fill the gap,” Soulier said.
How much that is depends on the student. For some, financial aid already covers most of their tuition. Others have used up their eligibility.
“They may have maxed out of their financial aid because maybe they’ve been at it for a while, or maybe they switched up programs too many times,” Soulier said. “In those cases, we would kick in more. We’re meeting the gap. We’re trying to get that balance to zero.”
The college has seen the need firsthand. “We’ve done assessments of students who have, for example, the most outstanding balances, and we’re finding that a majority of them are older adult students,” Soulier said.
More than tuition
Soulier said the program is about more than money.
“It’s not just a financial piece,” she said. “We want to connect students with academic support, social support throughout their process. It’s all of those things combined.”
That support matters because adult students often step away from school for reasons that have nothing to do with the classroom. When the college asks students why they delayed enrolling or stopped attending, Soulier said, “most of them point towards just life circumstance.”
“That’s all of those things combined: job, family, other responsibilities, paying bills,” she said. “Picking up another shift, those types of things.”
Some students “stop out” because they got a full-time job offer. Others leave to take care of family. “Adult students often [are] parenting both directions or caretaking in both directions,” caring for both children and aging parents, Soulier said.
Promise to Complete is meant to take tuition off that list of worries, “so that the tuition in itself is a peace of mind and can be taken care of,” she said.
The effort also supports a broader goal.
“Our goal is getting students to their first college credential. That is in alignment with goals with the Wisconsin Technical College System,” Soulier said. She added that it also fits the college’s own goals around completion.
Building toward an open application
Students can’t apply for Promise to Complete directly yet. For now, the college works with the Madison College Foundation to find the highest-need students who apply for the foundation’s general scholarships.
Soulier said the goal is to open it up more widely once the funding can support it. Because it is a promise to complete, she said, the college has to be able to fund a student through graduation. For many students, that means two, four or six more semesters.
“We hope that eventually we can open up a broader application, just like we do with our Scholars of Promise program, that folks can just go online and apply,” she said. “We want to make sure that we can be sustainable and follow through on that promise, and so we want to make sure we’re building up the funds to be able to open that up to students.”
Play It Forward Oct. 10
The community can learn more about the program and support it with donations at Play It Forward, a fundraiser for Promise to Complete. It runs from 6 to 9 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 10, at Buck & Honey’s in Monona. Tickets are $75. The evening has a retro disco theme, “Studio 54: A Night of Promise & Possibility,” and will include:
- Remarks from Madison College and Madison College Foundation leadership
- Stories from students who have benefited from the support
- A silent auction and donation baskets
- “A fun game of bingo,” Soulier said, along with “really just networking and community”
Soulier said the event’s main purpose is to raise awareness of adult learners, not just fundraising.
“Our goal first and foremost is raising community awareness and supporting our adult learners, drawing attention to our adult learners, and just bringing community into the conversation about how we invest in our adult learners,” she said.
The event is open to “really anybody who’s looking to support adult education in our community,” she said. “It’s a place for us to come together and celebrate and work towards supporting those students.”
Registration, sponsorships and auction donations are available at supportmadisoncollege.org/play-it-forward-event. Sponsorships run from $500 to $2,000 and up. Questions about the program can go to [email protected].
For Soulier, that conversation is long overdue.
“I feel like often they’re left out of the conversations about affordability and accessibility in higher education, and so I’m really hoping that we can increase that awareness,” she said. “It’s important for us to support all of our students.”
