It’s a two-sided dilemma. By 2031, fully 72 percent of the nation’s jobs will require an education beyond high school. Yet, only 55 percent of working-age Americans have earned a college degree or other credential with value. At the same time, U.S. colleges and universities are heading for a demographic drop-off: With a shrinking pool of 18-year-olds to recruit, enrollments nationwide are plunging, causing many colleges to eliminate majors, reduce programs, and, in some cases, close altogether.

The nation needs a better-educated, better-trained workforce. Many colleges need more students. So, higher education is starting to embrace at least one powerful strategy that addresses both challenges: aggressively recruiting people with college experience who stopped short of earning a degree and returning them to the classroom.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, this “some college, no credential” category defines more than 43 million working adults. It includes all kinds of people, from those who left school after only a semester to those who stopped out a few credits shy of graduation. The barriers to finishing college, both bachelor’s and associate programs, are many and varied: financial constraints, job responsibilities, physical and mental illness, family duties, scheduling conflicts, and an overall lack of direction. More students also face unstable housing situations, and many had their educational hopes dashed by not having a reliable way to get to school.

Even years after they left college, many one-time students who want to go back to school find themselves stymied. Putting an intimate face on this population, photojournalist Rachel Bujalski, with support from Lumina Foundation, chronicled the daily lives of seven individuals who went to college but stopped short of graduation. From across the country, they are a diverse group coping with a range of life challenges. What they share in common is unfulfilled educational promises.

For Americans, this cycle of missed opportunity limits individual opportunity and economic mobility. Addressing these educational barriers is crucial, not only for personal fulfillment but for strengthening the social fabric of American society.

Alyssa

When the person who raised her needed care, Alyssa chose family over school. Years later, she is discovering that leaving college can be much easier than returning, even when the reasons are beyond a student’s control. Her persistence exposes a system with little room for grief, caregiving, or second chances when life intervenes.

After high school, Alyssa enrolled at Indiana University South Bend, commuting from Rochester, Ind., where she lived with her aunt, uncle, and grandmother. A diligent student and three-sport athlete, she saw college as the natural next step.

Alyssa’s grandmother had been her primary guardian since Alyssa was six, when her father was killed by a drunk driver. “She was like the rock of everybody,” Alyssa said. “My best friend.”

Her first year went smoothly as she studied for a career in health care. Then her grandmother, just 63, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia.

“It was a quick onset, and it was very rapid,” Alyssa said.

With her uncle supporting the family and her aunt caring for four young children, Alyssa took on more of her grandmother’s care. She began missing classes and eventually left college.

“I decided that at this point, school was not what was best for me, that taking care of my grandmother was,” she said. “And I don’t regret that at all because I got those last couple of months with my grandmother.”

Her grandmother died soon afterward.

At the time, Alyssa couldn’t see a path back to college. Her grade point average had fallen to 1.9, and returning would mean having to repeat prerequisite courses. She also lost her financial aid. Alyssa said that because she did not have power of attorney for her grandmother, the university would not recognize her grandmother’s illness and death as extenuating circumstances.

“I just felt like I had one shot and misfired,” she said, “and now I was done.”

The years that followed brought work that offered little financial security, the upheaval of the pandemic, and a period of deep depression.

But when Alyssa gave birth to her daughter, she felt a renewed sense of purpose and a reason to imagine a different future.

“It was like I had something to live for again,” she said. “And I didn’t want my daughter to live the life that I was living. I wanted to do better for her.”

A second child and a move to Indianapolis for her husband’s job followed two years later. When her youngest turned two, Alyssa decided it was time to return to college.

“I just woke up one day and had this feeling of, ‘It’s time to stop bouncing around this idea of going to school.’” She enrolled at Indiana University Kokomo, where she hopes to complete her degree within two years and begin a career as a radiology technician.

Alyssa is awaiting a decision on her renewed appeal for financial aid, hopeful that this time the university will recognize the circumstances that led her to leave college the first time. But whatever the outcome is, she is determined to keep going.

“If the answer is ‘no,’ I’m OK with it,” she said. “I will figure it out one way or another.”