The University of Texas at San Antonio
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Removing barriers and simplifying re-enrollment drives adult learner success
The University of Texas at San Antonio (UT San Antonio) serves as a major educational hub in Bexar County, Texas. Established in 1969, the public research university enrolls approximately 38,200 students across six campuses and offers more than 350 degree programs. Recently, the university merged with The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio to form a unified, comprehensive institution.
This growth aligns directly with the needs of the surrounding community. Bexar County aims to reach 70% post-secondary credential attainment by 2030. To help meet this goal, UT San Antonio recognized the need to focus heavily on an often-overlooked demographic in higher education: adult learners who stopped out before earning their degrees.
Partnership Overview
50,589+
714+
48
$5.8M
The challenge of re-engaging adult learners who stopped out
For years, UT San Antonio maintained a policy for short-term stopouts: if a student left in good standing and wanted to return within 18 months, they did not have to formally reapply and could simply register for classes during the open registration period.
Learners who had been away from school longer were folded into general email campaigns and not segmented as adult learners who had been away from school for years. The university knew these learners had incredible potential. According to Lynn Barnes, Senior Vice Provost of Strategic Enrollment, data showed a significant population of people within a 100-mile radius of the university had some college but no credentials. The university wanted to re-engage these learners and help them “get over the finish line,” seeing it as a way to fulfill goals within their local community and county. “We knew students who had been gone longer, especially if they had a significant amount of credits accumulated, would want to come back,” Lynn says. “We just honestly didn’t have the capabilities to go after those students.”
“We knew students who had been gone longer, especially if they had a significant amount of credits accumulated, would want to come back. We just honestly didn’t have the capabilities to go after those students.”
Partnering with ReUp to transform UT San Antonio’s re-enrollment strategy
After forming a partnership in 2024, UT San Antonio and ReUp worked closely to launch a large-scale outreach effort that included not just recent stopouts but students who had left years ago. “We sent ReUp approximately 48,000 students on our first list,” explains Darren Curry, Assistant Vice Provost for Strategic Enrollment Initiatives. “We went back 15 years. So, we welcomed everybody to reapply.” Outreach was tailored to the unique needs of adult learners, making it consistent and effective.
ReUp’s Success Coaches offered individualized support to learners. They worked with learners to navigate institutional processes—clarifying what was needed to re-enroll, resolving questions around financial holds, and, when needed, providing guidance on mapping out academic plans. Rather than replacing UT San Antonio’s internal support teams, ReUp’s coaches filled a critical gap by partnering with the university’s staff, enhancing outreach capacity, and ensuring learners felt supported and confident navigating university processes.
“The beauty of the ReUp partnership is that it’s not just about re-engaging the learner for readmission, but it’s also about continued partnership,” Darren explains. “While our student success team focuses on our currently enrolled students, ReUp coaches are following up with adult learners. So it’s supplemental to the existing infrastructure that our student success team has in place to support the persistence.”
Removing barriers to simplify re-enrollment for adult learners
The expanded outreach efforts revealed that many adult learners strongly desired to return. However, as they attempted to re-enroll, UT San Antonio realized that adult learners faced an enrollment process that was not designed for their specific circumstances. “We initially thought that if adult learners were reintegrated back into our process and admitted and moved through the process, everything would be fine,” Eric Cooper, Associate Vice Provost for Strategic Enrollment, says. “But then we realized there were many nuances that disenfranchised this group at several points along the way.”
Working with ReUp, the university used these insights to rethink the returning learner experience, identifying four major hurdles and taking action to address them.
1. Creating a dedicated, transparent, returning learner process
Previously, returning learners had difficulty navigating the application process, trying to decide whether to apply as a transfer, readmit, or returning student. The way back contained numerous steps. Some did not apply to them while others were required based on the student’s standing when they left. UT San Antonio removed some barriers and clarified others for returning learners, giving them a direct, simple, transparent path to initiate re-enrollment.
2. Solving the “catalog range” challenge
The university found that many adult learners who expressed interest in returning to finish their degrees were “outside of catalog range,” meaning that their original degree programs had changed drastically or no longer existed.
To fix this, the university shifted to upfront, customized advising. Advisors worked closely with learners to discover the best path forward, whether that meant returning to a similar program or changing majors entirely.
“Working with ReUp highlighted to our team that manages our fully online programs that there’s a much greater demand for more flexible programs and those that can be configurable to try to maximize the work that students may have already done,” Lynn notes. “One program that has helped us tremendously is our multi-disciplinary studies program that allows students from a variety of majors to put together a degree plan that would allow them to finish by maximizing the credits that they’ve already taken.”
3. Clearing financial holds
Financial holds prevented many adult learners from registering for classes. UT San Antonio gained clarity on these specific holds and updated their initial messaging to direct learners straight to the financial services team. This proactive communication helped learners resolve outstanding issues and successfully re-enroll. In September 2025 alone, this clarity allowed the team to add 5,400 leads and 130 contacts back into the active pipeline.
4. Demystifying academic dismissal
At first, learners dismissed for academic reasons found few clear routes for reinstatement. ReUp led a process improvement workshop with the university to address this issue. This collaborative meeting resulted in the creation of a dedicated webpage featuring a comprehensive reinstatement guide for undergraduates.
“Within the first couple of semesters of working with ReUp we had students reapply who had already been denied admission to particular programs,” Darren says. “We recognized that we didn’t have clear communication with the prospective students or with ReUp about what the re-admission standards were. We saw that we needed a lot more transparency.”
Achieving immediate results: Re-enrollments and tuition recovery
By treating adult learners as a distinct population and actively removing the barriers in their way, UT San Antonio quickly saw results.
“We launched in April, and we had learners returning for summer, so it was pretty immediate,” Darren says. “The partnership has not put stress on our existing systems or processes. It helped us identify some opportunities for clarity in our readmission policies and for sharing that information with learners to demystify not only how to return but what program they could return to.”
Through the partnership, ReUp and UT San Antonio achieved the following milestones through Spring 2026:
- 50,589 learners outreached
- 714 adult learners successfully re-enrolled
- 48 learners graduated
- $5.8 million in recovered tuition
- 86 % term-to-term retention rate from Fall 2025 to Spring 2026
“The partnership has not put stress on our existing systems or processes. It helped us identify some opportunities for clarity in our readmission policies and for sharing that information with adult learners to demystify not only how to return but what program they could return to.”
Key takeaways for supporting and retaining adult learners
While working with ReUp, the UT San Antonio team learned that the rules designed to manage traditional students can often push adult learners away.
It turns out that we needed a working group that can review our policies that have in many cases been in place for a very long time and don’t necessarily serve adult learners the way they once did,” Lynn says. “The very policies that caused learners to leave could in some part be the policies preventing them from coming back.”
u0022This is an opportunity for adult learners to get back into an institution, hopefully make up for where they left off, and then be able to pay off student loans and gain a higher income.u0022
Treating adult learners as a special population also requires cross-campus partnerships. The university needed representation from every department that impacts a learner’s ability to enroll, pay, register for classes, and persevere.
By adapting to the unique needs of adult learners, UT San Antonio is changing lives and strengthening the Bexar County workforce.
“Life happens to students,” Lynn concludes. “If we can help play a part in bringing them back and getting them to complete their degree, then it’s going to open a lot of doors for people.”
ReUp Education is revolutionizing the enrollment to graduation journey for all adults seeking higher education. Built upon the belief that with the right support, resources, and people in your corner, anything is possible we partner with future-facing institutions and state systems to bring equitable success in higher ed to all.