A statewide program to help adults who have completed some university courses but never graduated was around for almost nine years before its funding ended in 2025.
Now the program, Complete 2 Compete, is getting a second life.
The Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees voted in January to revamp the program under a new name and a decentralized structure. Some of the state’s eight public universities will develop and operate their own versions of what’s now known as the Adult Degree Completion program.
Now, they will develop their own college completion program requirements and curriculum, and recruit eligible students. Adults who complete the program will earn a bachelor’s degree.
The program’s revival comes at a moment when Mississippi lawmakers and some colleges across the state are discussing ways to increase the number of residents who get a degree or credential before entering the state’s workforce. About 12% of Mississippi residents have some college experience but no degree.
Complete 2 Compete helped 4,119 adult learners complete their degree, Melissa Temple, IHL director of nursing education, told trustees.
Supporting degree completion
Complete 2 Compete launched in 2017 as a partnership between IHL and the state’s community college board. It focused on encouraging Mississippi adults to complete higher education. Participants had been out of college for at least two years without earning a degree or credential or had earned at least 90 credit hours.
The program also linked adults with college or university career coaches for help identifying the best path and academic courses for an associate or bachelor’s degree.
Complete 2 Compete received an initial $3.5 million from the Mississippi Department of Human Services, the Mississippi Department of Employment Security and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The funding covered $500 grants for eligible students at the beginning of each semester to help cover tuition, supplies and prior student loan debt. That grant amount increased to $1,000 a semester in 2018.
A $1.3 million grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation funded the program until 2023, Sewell said. Then in fall of 2024, community colleges withdrew from the program, leaving only the state’s public universities as participants, he said.
Quality over quantity
The university studies program classes are primarily offered online to help adults fit school into their lives, said Lisa Rieger, associate director of pre-professional and exploratory programs at the University of Southern Mississippi, which runs a Complete 2 Compete program.
“Students returning to school have many challenges to overcome — accessing new university technological systems, navigating academic policies and deadlines that differ from their prior enrollment, ensuring prior coursework is applied to a degree,” Rieger said.
Earning a bachelor’s degree is also a point of pride for students, Rieger said.
The degree “opens the door for promotion and new pathways for many individuals, while others are thrilled to have attained a personal goal.”
College degree completion programs are good for society, said Josh Wyner, a vice president at the Aspen Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank and research organization, and founder of its higher education reform initiative, the College Excellence Program. But not every degree has equal value or can help students land a job and earn a living wage, he said.
Fifty-two percent of recent bachelor’s degree holders are underemployed a year after graduation, meaning they’re working a job that doesn’t require the degree, according to a 2024 report from The Burning Glass Institute and Strada Institute for the Future of Work, which both conduct workforce research. And nearly half of graduates are still underemployed a decade after college, the report said.
“When we’re bringing students back [to school], we need to ask ourselves not just how do we get them to a degree, but how do we get them to a degree of value,” Wyner said. “A degree that is actually needed in the labor markets and will help them get ahead in life, help them earn a decent living with benefits.”
The most successful programs are those that help students identify their courses and align them with potential job options, Wyner said.
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