The Persistence Gap: How Emergency Support is Revolutionizing Student Success
We sat down with President and CEO of Scholarship America, Mike Nylund, to explore a surprising discovery: three million students leave college each year due to unmet financial needs of just $1,000 or less. In this conversation, Mike discusses his organization's partnership with E4E Relief on the Brave of Heart Scholarship program, how a $50 bus pass can be as crucial as a full-ride scholarship, and why Scholarship America has shifted its focus from large awards to targeted emergency assistance that keeps students enrolled.
E4E Relief: Scholarship America has awarded $5.7 billion to 3.2 million students over your 60+ year history. That's incredible scale. Tell us a little bit about how you came into this role and what most connects you to the mission?
Mike Nylund: My connection to Scholarship America’s mission is an intensely personal one. I grew up in a small town in Northern Michigan, and a generous private scholarship was my ticket to a brighter future. Because of that scholarship, I was able to earn a bachelor’s degree from Michigan State and start building a career. After a number of years in sales, I was called to find a job that would allow me to give back, and that’s how I made my way into the financial aid world and, eventually, to Scholarship America.
This organization began as a door-to-door, grassroots effort to support students, just like I was supported, and that spirit has persisted even as we’ve scaled up to a global organization. Everyone on our team believes in the power of education, and in our efforts to build new, better, more impactful ways to connect students with financial support.
E4E Relief: The Brave of Heart Fund began as an emergency relief effort during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, to support families of healthcare workers who lost their lives. Can you walk us through how that initial relief mission evolved into a scholarship program, and what led Scholarship America to partner with E4E Relief in managing the education grants?
Mike Nylund: As the immediate crisis subsided, the Brave of Heart Fund’s leaders recognized that many families would need longer-term support, especially children and spouses pursuing education in the wake of tragedy. With several corporate donors and community partners contributing to the Brave of Heart Fund, and with input from other scholarship sponsors like the Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation (which sponsors the Frontline Families Scholarship Fund), the decision was made to allocate surplus funds to educational opportunities.
That commitment led to the creation of the Brave of Heart Scholarship, which Scholarship America is honored to administer in partnership with E4E Relief. The program was designed to create lasting impact by providing meaningful awards to spouses, domestic partners, and children of fallen healthcare heroes, with funding available for undergraduate, graduate, and vocational study.
What began as an emergency relief effort has thus evolved into a sustainable investment in the future—helping families honor their loved ones’ legacies by building brighter educational and career pathways.
E4E Relief: Scholarship America has discovered that three million students annually leave college due to unmet financial needs, often for setbacks of $1,000 or less. How did this realization—that relatively small amounts can have such massive consequences—reshape your understanding of what effective intervention looks like in the education space?
Mike Nylund: Headlines about higher education were dominated for years by concerns about high costs. And while tuition prices are a significant barrier, we’ve learned that even the students who can afford to pay for college are still at risk. Scholarships run out, financial circumstances change, unexpected costs hit—and all of these are inflection points that determine whether a student can persist or not. Knowing this, Scholarship America began to rethink our role, and to expand our ideas about what kind of assistance can truly move the needle for students. It isn’t always the splashy, full-ride scholarship. Sometimes—often, in fact—it’s $200 for groceries or $50 for a bus pass that keep students in school.
Additionally, we’ve learned that the money is just the beginning. While the emergency aid scholarship may be the safety net to keep a student from dropping out that week, the programs that have made a demonstrable difference are those that provide wraparound services to keep students on track. That can be proactive case management, financial or academic advising, or connecting students with peer networks for support and accountability.
E4E Relief: When you provide emergency aid that keeps a student in school, what have you learned about the broader systemic impact? How does keeping one student enrolled affect their families, their future earning potential, and the communities they'll eventually serve?
Mike Nylund: The difference between starting a degree program and completing it is immense. The Center on Education and Workforce at Georgetown University estimates that college degree holders out-earn those with just a high school diploma by 84 percent—but only about 2/3 of students who enroll in a bachelor's degree program end up finishing.
Those millions of students who don’t finish aren’t just missing out on that wage premium, either. If they’ve taken out student loans, around 60% end up defaulting; that’s twice the rate of borrowers who complete their degree. Persisting and completing a degree truly is the difference between generational mobility and a vicious cycle of debt.
One metric that really stood out to me was the impact of the Dash Emergency Grant. Students who received average awards of $500—along with counseling and advising—persisted at rates of 94% at four-year institutions and 86% at two-year institutions, compared to national averages of 83% and 62%, respectively.
E4E Relief: Help us understand a little bit more about the drivers for corporations who set up scholarship programs. What resonates most with corporate partners today—philanthropic impact, employee engagement, DEI alignment, or brand visibility?
Mike Nylund: You could ask every one of our 1,300 program sponsors and get 1,300 different answers, but we are seeing some definite trends. Workforce engagement and development is a huge driver for corporate program sponsors, and there are lots of approaches. Some sponsors focus on upskilling current employees; many provide scholarships to their team members’ dependents as a benefit. And, increasingly, companies are looking to use scholarships, internships and mentoring programs in a holistic way to develop their talent pipeline.
Of course, there are also plenty of sponsors who design scholarships to meet CSR and philanthropic objectives as well, whether that’s among their workforce or in their communities. I think that’s what’s so great about scholarships—you can provide an employee benefit, a recruitment tool and a community-impact initiative all in the same program, and companies recognize that multitasking value.
E4E Relief: One thing that distinguishes Scholarship America is your expertise in navigating the complexities of scholarship setup, compliance and administration. Essentially, you've built the operational backbone that allows others to focus on their missions. How did you recognize that this administrative expertise was actually your core value proposition? What led you to realize that the "how" of delivering aid was just as important as the "what" and "why?"
Mike Nylund: After every scholarship cycle, we connect with our program sponsors and ask for their feedback: what worked, what didn’t, what happened that was unexpected. And the 96% of sponsors who stay with us from year to year invariably say one thing in common: they love working with our people.
This organization has a level of institutional expertise and experience that I’ve never seen anywhere else. No matter what role someone has, they’re committed to learning, delivering and communicating solutions, and to helping both sponsors and students through every step of the process. We focus on “how” because our people are great at it—and that helps us work with sponsors to determine a “why” that makes the biggest impact on students.