- I had a bit of a rocky start in my education journey.
I was due to have the baby in October,
but the baby came a month early.
I had to sit out and, of course, that meant
I didn't take semester exams, so I didn't finish.
- There are more than 36 million Americans
who earned college credits but never graduated with a degree.
- The adult learner population is having to juggle
a lot in addition to school.
Family responsibilities, financial barriers,
and even just the mindset where they doubt
or question themselves.
- But one Mississippi program is flagging down students
with some college, no degree,
and helping them cross the finish line.
- We have students who may have just been out
a couple years, and then there are others
who have been out several decades.
- Getting my degree and completing something that I
started encourages my daughter and my sons
to finish what you start, and not just give up
because of all of the obstacles in your way.
- Basically, we are encouraging Mississippi adults
who have earned some college coursework
to return to college to complete their degree.
- Amber Palmer is a project coordinator for
'Complete 2 Compete' better known as C2C.
- C2C began out of a call to increase
the education attainment rate in the nation.
And trying to do that by just the traditional
student population was not gonna help complete the goal.
- Anywhere you look across the country,
research shows that education
leads to better wages and more resilient employment.
- Often, when you envision a college student,
you see a fresh out of high school individual
enrolling into college to live on a dorm,
but that is not the actual picture of a student today.
- Krystal Austin interview, take one.
- I'ma try not to get emotional but, okay.
I began my education at Jackson State University in 1999.
I was taking classes at Jackson State,
and then I was pregnant.
I was two classes short of
having enough credits to graduate.
And then I got sick and I had to stop attending classes
so I had to start over again.
- We have students who have families,
who are working multiple jobs.
To increase the education attainment rate in the nation,
we need to address barriers that this student population
faces to then encourage them to come back
and complete their degree.
The first thing we offer is a degree program
that is exclusive to Complete 2 Compete.
It is flexible, it is fast track, so it's a path
for an individual to cross the finish line
to degree completion.
We also offer a tuition assistance grant
to address the financial barrier that adult learners face.
And then finally we have Complete 2 Compete coaches.
The purpose of the coach is really to support
and walk with our students all the way from
admissions through graduation.
- There were times when I thought,
"This is taking forever just to get a college degree."
C2C helped me by providing $500 of that final tuition.
And that's how I was able to complete my classes.
- With support from C2C, Krystal Austin
graduated from Jackson State University in 2019,
20 years after she first enrolled in college.
Now, Austin heads up her own small business,
working to advise others in their career journeys.
- I started my business after I graduated.
I'm a resume writer; I do a little bit of interview coaching
and building people's professional presence.
I do not think I would have opened my business
if I had not earned my degree.
- Support is sometimes underestimated.
The lives of our students are tremendously impacted
by earning a degree.
They have gone on to gain employment opportunities,
promotions on the job, they have proven to their children
and themselves that despite particular circumstances
or challenges, goals can still be achieved.
We are impacting our state, its economy.
It's almost—it's hard to quantify it.
If you think about throwing a stone into a body of water,
you see the ripple effects and then you can't.
That doesn't mean they're not still going,
you just can't see them.
That is the impact that this program has.
- My daughter is a 9th grader. She's on the varsity team.
- Wanna do our dance right quick?
- What is it, oh yeah. - Remember?
- She's a shooting guard.
I look forward to my daughter going to a college or university.
I think because she was there to witness
me graduating and walking across the stage,
she had my phone while she was in the audience
and she just had a million pictures and a million videos.
I think that was inspiring for her.
Everyone has their own unique story.
Mine may be different from yours, but at some point in time,
you may have walked a Z to get to where you needed to be.
Others have walked an N, or an L,
but sometimes that path is not always straight.
The only thing that matters is that we all finish.
No matter how you get to your journey, it's just finishing.