4-ReUp City Colleges of Chicago ReUp Proposal.pdf

ReUp Education

City Colleges of Chicago

Partnership Proposal

April 10, 2026

ReUp Education - Partnership Proposal 2026

Executive Summary

As the largest community college system in Illinois, City Colleges of Chicago (CCC) plays a vital role in providing accessible, high-quality education to a diverse student population. However, shifting enrollment trends present increasing challenges, including the impending enrollment cliff in 2025, which will shrink the traditional student pipeline. Additionally, Primarily Online Institutions (POIs) have expanded aggressively, increasing their Illinois enrollment by 90% since 2015 by leveraging over $500 million annually in marketing—drawing adult learners away from Illinois colleges.

With Illinois now having the lowest re-enrollment rate in the nation (1.2%), CCC has an urgent opportunity to implement innovative student re-engagement strategies. By partnering with ReUp Education, CCC can proactively support its mission in key areas:

● Re-enrollment Marketplace: A key goal of this initiative is to standardize CCC’s re-enrollment strategy across all seven campuses, ensuring a cohesive and student-centered approach. By partnering with ReUp, CCC can establish an internal re-enrollment marketplace, enabling students to seamlessly return to their home institution or another CCC campus that better fits their needs. This ecosystem will help maximize student retention and completion rates, ensuring that students stay within the CCC system to earn their credential—rather than stopping out or seeking alternatives elsewhere.

● Expanding Equity & Access: CCC serves one of the most diverse student bodies in the state. ReUp’s personalized outreach and support model ensures that returning students—especially those from underserved communities—receive tailored guidance to persist and graduate.

● Advancing Workforce Development: With CCC’s strong focus on career-connected learning, ReUp can help adult learners return and complete workforce-aligned programs, supporting the region’s economic mobility and employer needs.

● Delivering Proven Results—Fast: A partnership with ReUp is designed for speed and impact. Within 4 weeks of receiving a list of eligible students, ReUp can launch outreach, enabling CCC to see measurable re-enrollment outcomes for the next term. Unlike traditional marketing or lead generation, ReUp delivers high-quality, persisting enrollments

Following internal discussions with key stakeholders, CCC has determined that it does not have the internal capacity, infrastructure, or specialized expertise required to execute this work effectively. This partnership is a strategic initiative of the district to help grow enrollment and open a new revenue stream. Additionally, 20 other Illinois institutions are currently in partnerships with ReUp, where results with this population are not theoretical, they are proven. With this level of participation, CCC is able to gain access to exclusive pricing based on the level of participation already in the state.

Innovative and Results-driven Solution Set

ReUp Education’s offering combines patented technology, data analytics, persona based marketing, and student-centric coaching. All of this is supported by the only student facing platform in the industry tailored to meet the needs of adult learners. The result will be higher enrollment amongst your adult learner populations, lower resources required by CCC to support the initiative, and a modern student experience that will create an affinity and demand for your school amongst your former students.

ReUp provides a nimble, turnkey solution that delivers innovative and results-driven services. With a proven track record of success across over seven systems and states and 175 institutions, ReUp offers unmatched insights and solutions.

During onboarding, we take the time to understand your institution’s communication strategy to ensure our outreach supplements—rather than duplicates—what your team is already doing. Our goal is to provide additive support that enhances the student experience while maintaining alignment with internal efforts.

ReUp’s proven approach:

1) Technology-Driven Scale: ReUp’s proprietary student-facing platform empowers scalable operations and the highest level of personalization. This comprehensive platform combines technology, data insights, and tailored coaching to effectively re-engage stopouts, guiding them to the right program and supporting their journey (ReUp’s student platform includes an inventory of all available programs, modalities and workforce alignment).

2) Advanced Data Analytics: Our 2-million-record database and patented intervention algorithms enable hyper-segmentation and predictive modeling. ReUp’s data-driven approach uncovers key patterns of re-enrollment and barriers to success, providing actionable insights to inform your retention and perseverance strategies.

3) Personalised Marketing at Scale: ReUp’s multivariate segmentation and omnichannel marketing strategies target unique student personas. This ensures highly relevant and impactful engagement, driving exponential results. A partnership with ReUp is designed for speed and impact. Within 4 weeks of receiving your list of students to target, ReUp can launch outreach and CCC will begin seeing results for the next enrollment term.

4) Student-Centered Coaching: Supported by our proprietary learner-facing portal, ReUp’s one-on-one coaching case management model ensures that students not only re-enroll but also persist and succeed.

5) Capacity Building: ReUp’s partnership is designed to complement and enhance CCC’s existing student success initiatives rather than duplicate them. It is common for advisors to manage large caseloads, making it difficult to provide deep, individualized outreach to stopouts. ReUp acts as an additional layer of engagement, ensuring returning adult learners receive the attention they need to persist and succeed.

Commercial Terms Overview

To minimize risk and maximize enrollment, ReUp offers a pay-for-performance model requiring no upfront investment from our partners—no implementation fees or initial costs.

ReUp only earns fees when students successfully enroll or re-enroll, and stay enrolled. We do not collect fees on any other revenue streams. These fees represent a fraction of the tuition revenue actually generated, ensuring a low-risk, high-return approach for CCC.

All resources are variable and directly tied to new or recaptured tuition revenue. ReUp’s partners often view this model as a revenue center rather than a cost center, as tuition is recaptured before any fees are incurred, making the opportunity both sustainable and financially advantageous. Under this model, ReUp makes significant investments on behalf of its partners. This includes: marketing, technology, data enrichment, and human capital, allowing you to focus on other higher value institutional priorities.

These terms allow us to provide a discount to all participating colleges. The terms and discount tiers are below:

- Length of agreement: 5 years, teach-out upon termination

- Pricing model: Percentage of net tuition revenue (volume discounts available)

- Revenue Share: this is net tuition charged by the institution in which the student re-enrolls. It does not include fees and is net of institutional scholarships not paid by outside sources

- Stopout List Parameters: Stopouts with a last date of attendance (LDA) of one full academic year (or two full terms), as far back as fifteen to twenty years (after list goes to NSC to remove those currently enrolled or have earned a credential).

City Colleges of Chicago Rate Revenue Share Effective Discount Rate

24% 20% discount (from standard 35%)

Data and Security

ReUp is NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), HECVAT (Higher Education Community Vendor Assessment), and FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) compliant and our systems and processes are designed to ensure student data is securely managed. ReUp also adheres to FERPA standards, including:

1. Not re-disclosing education records containing Student Data to third parties without the prior written consent of the Institution

2. Disclosing of Student Data solely on a need-to-know basis in pursuit of the commitments and undertakings of this Agreement

3. Limiting disclosure to those individuals within the organization that have a “legitimate educational interest.”

Our dedicated data team governs a robust set of data security policies to ensure that all student data is protected at all times, and that all applicable law is followed. Our data infrastructure is hosted on AWS via a VPC with a private subnet.

Re-Enrollment Forecast

Our goal is to provide City Colleges of Chicago with a focused solution for stopouts with a last date of attendance (LDA) of 2 + terms to 15 years who require personalized support to connect, enroll, and persist. With enrollment just over 40,000 students enrolled, we estimate that your stopout population is over 100,000.

Factors that we look at to inform forecasting include: our assumption on the size of the list by LDA band (1-5 yrs, 6-10 yrs, 11+ years), strength of online programs, composition of the list, term of the agreement, and region of the college. We also looked at our historical performance with institutions with a similar profile, including Triton and Oakton.

Tuition Share Rate: 27% Annual Increase: 0% Estimated Cost of Tuition: $153 In-District, cost per credit hour Contract Term: 5 years Payment Schedule: Invoicing occurs each term, after the census date

Enrollments 13,000 Total Enrolled Terms Enrollments 1 from 5,600 unique learners 2

Recaptured Tuition Dollars1 $17 million - $18 million in tuition dollars 3

Estimated ReUp Fee $5 million

City Colleges Gross Profit $11 million - 14 million

¹ This number equals total re-enrolled terms. Students coached by ReUp persist for an average of 2.3 terms.

² A student coached by ReUp takes on average 9-12 credit hours per term.

3 Recaptured tuition revenue accounts for expected persistence.

Appendix: Detailed Service Descriptions

ReUp Education is solely focused on providing re-enrollment services for “stopout” students (with “some college, but no credential”) – an important, often “forgotten” population that colleges don’t typically have the time, resources, or expertise to engage with efficiently. ReUp has a unique, scalable approach - blending data, technology and people - to help guide students back to college and, ultimately, towards degree completion. ReUp builds a relationship with the former students that is true to your brand and reinforces the reasons they chose your institution in the first place.

By partnering together, ReUp and your institution can generate increased enrollment, recaptured tuition revenue, higher completion rates, and permanently change the lives of former students and their families by ensuring they return and complete their degree

ReUp provides a comprehensive solution that blends technology, marketing, data, and personalized one-on-one coaching to find and re-engage stopped-out students, guide them to re-enroll, and ultimately graduate at no cost to the student.

ReUp has a proprietary approach to engaging stopout students through:

1. Launching multi-channel campaigns, with proven copy content, and automation

2. Student lifecycle (pipeline) process management system

3. Predictive analytics models

4. Multivariable prioritization algorithm for student outreach which drives the Intelligent Work Queue (student prioritization for coaching workflow)

5. Proprietary rubric for coaching call quality assessment

6. AI powered call analysis

7. Data-driven student personas (patented) based on current datasets and personalized support plans

Working in unison, ReUp’s technology stack provides a comprehensive view of the learner. This is crucial for both data enrichment and predictive scoring.

ReUp has found that up to 40% of contact information is out of date within one term of a student’s departure. To address that challenge and to maximize the impact of engagement campaigns, ReUp is able to append and validate the contact information in an institution’s stopout list. We know that a list containing mostly personal (as opposed to institution-assigned) email addresses will yield significantly better results when brought to market. We make this investment for better outcomes and a more relevant and beneficial experience for the learner.

The same is true for the modality in which students wish to be contacted. In order to reach students with varying communication preferences and profiles, ReUp contacts students across multiple channels including phone, email, SMS, survey, social media, and targeted advertising and tracks their engagement with each to determine preference.

After data enrichment occurs, ReUp collects and accumulates data along key parameters from partners to measure the likelihood of engagement, re-entry, and completion. These prediction scores allow ReUp to effectively segment users to determine the right path, touchpoint, or message to the right learner, at the right time.

Predictive Modeling

ReUp has a deep, data-driven understanding of the unique stopout population from a continually expanding data set encompassing 1,000,000+ unique students, 2.94 million student interactions, and 8.8 million individual pieces of data.

This data feeds a predictive model to advise how to prioritize our outreach, to personalize our support, and to better forecast our results. It makes our entire operation more efficient and effective. These predictions allow us to optimize every phase of the student lifecycle from first outreach to graduation. These models also inform how to best communicate with students, what the right messages are, and the right time to send those messages.

We incorporate directory, academic, demographic, behavioral, and psychographic information — both structured and unstructured — into our model development. In terms of algorithm selection and calibration, our platform allows us to test several modeling strategies simultaneously and deploy the winning approach.

While there are dozens of student behaviors that can be predicted, it’s vital to identify the specific behaviors that are most consequential to success. In the case of supporting stopouts, we’ve developed three primary models in order to understand each student’s:

1. Likelihood to engage in coaching

2. Likelihood to re-enroll in school

3. Likelihood to persist once re-enrolled

Personas

ReUp analyzes various sources of data - like demographic, academic, financial, behavioral, and psychographic data - to develop nuanced, holistic profiles of learners called Personas. These Personas are a data-driven approach to relevant messaging and outreach, engagement frequency, coach-student interventions, and, ultimately, a personalized re-entry plan for each student. Personas are also a powerful way of understanding population-wide trends.

Through years of research, ReUp determined that relationships are fundamental to adult learner achievement. ReUp uses this patented technology to assess the relationships in an adult learner’s life that enable or inhibit their success in returning to school. The technology classifies them into one of 2,048 personas, and, based on the persona, the system suggests research-based interventions. When used by their coach, the interventions help adult learners re-enroll at higher rates. This innovation that ReUp developed enables the art of coaching to also be a science.

One of the benefits of partnering with ReUp is— instead of waiting up to multiple terms to collect usable data— ReUp has leveraged the entire dataset across their portfolio of work to form a globalized set of models. This means that upon launch with CCC, we can make predictions and optimize our platform before we have reached out to a single student. Then, as the student completes their first and second terms, the global models gain additional training data, which further improves accuracy for all partners.

Timing can be hugely consequential when predicting human behavior. Each person has a unique set of factors at play in their lives that evolve and change over time, especially this SCNC student population, so when predictive models are only applied at a single point in time they typically underperform. To account for this, ReUp’s platform incorporates time itself as a variable in their models so that the predictions they make are as dynamic as people’s lives.

This means that each day, all the students ReUp serves receive a new set of predictions based on the latest data they have available. This ensures that the actions they take to support students are up-to-date, making them far more accurate, useful, and effective.

Similar to how resting heart rate acts as a digital biomarker predictive of cardiovascular health, we identify “natural language markers” that predict desired outcomes. These markers are collected into dimensions and dynamically assessed over time as individuals communicate with our platform. The combination of assessed dimensions creates a persona classification for each individual and connects to adaptive intervention recommendations. We deliver these interventions to help individuals increase their likelihood of a positive outcome.

Each Persona contains a ReUp Sphere Health Indicator. ReUp Spheres represent the next step in the evolution of sentiment analysis. We have developed natural language markers that predict learner outcomes. These markers are collected into dimensions and dynamically assessed over time as individuals communicate with our coaches. See the example below:

*Persona Analytics integrated in the ReUp Coaching Platform

The collective technology solution is sold exclusively by ReUp Education. Their student personas classification system with adaptive interventions is patented technology (US Patent No 11,256,873; Title: Data Processing System and Method for Dynamic Assessment, Classification, and Delivery of Adaptive Personalized Recommendations, as well as US Patent No 11,449,681; Continuation-in-part).

Fundamentally, ReUp is a technology-enabled service, which means that we leverage data to power our technology, and technology to enable our team of success coaches in supporting stopout students to return to college and complete their degrees – at scale. Predictive analytics inform our approach and patented Personas technology enables us to take action on personalized, relevant outreach and support.

Coaching

ReUp supports returning students with a one-on-one success coaching relationship, using strategies developed and refined by ReUp specifically for the stopout population, including personalized support plans. ReUp coaches are equipped to handle both transactional and transformational conversations with students and are guided by each student’s needs and motivations.

ReUp’s proprietary coaching model was designed to meet the unique needs of learners who have the goal of completing their degree, but have not yet completed this milestone. The model is grounded in coaching theory and methodology and was designed to address the most prominent challenges identified after gathering data from tens of thousands of student interactions.

ReUp’s coaching philosophy is rooted in the reality that choosing to re-prioritize going to school, after taking time away, is a deeply human and emotional choice that requires considerable investment and evaluation of relationships. Our coaches understand the stopout population because they deeply connect to their motivations and life experience. They are relatable – 90% of ReUp coaches were first generation college students; 50% are people of color, and most have a personal "second chance" story that enables them to empathize and guide students towards successful outcomes.

This ensures our coaches have a high-level of credibility with students—a key element of building trust with those who might otherwise feel isolated and need holistic support in order to re-engage with the institution. Coaches also receive rigorous training in developing resilience. This means all coaching interactions integrate a deep sense of empathy, with strategic support to help students overcome personal obstacles, increase sense of belonging, and ultimately attain their degree.

ReUp’s success coaching comprehensively guides students through their entire journey: from consideration of returning, building intent, through the re-enrollment process, to ongoing support and accountability as they persist and progress on to graduation.

*Example of the learner experience

ReUp’s coaching provides both responsive engagement when students request support and proactive outreach to students throughout the process based on their specific return timelines to maintain student excitement about returning to the institution and progress towards clearing their particular barriers to return.

We aim to increase students’ knowledge of how to navigate institutional processes and resources as well as how to advocate for themselves, including knowing how to avail themselves of the right resources at the right time. This approach reduces the institutional resources required to serve these students.

ReUp will need to have command of the program options, admissions policies and practices, financial policies and resources, student services and success resources, etc. at the CCC to successfully guide students in their journey back to school and to completion. To this end, we have developed a robust knowledge sharing process that helps us effectively and efficiently learn about our partners.

It is our view that coaches complement the work of institutional professionals, such as academic advisors and financial aid counselors, by helping students identify when and how to engage with certain offices at the institution. Additionally, coaches prepare students for these meetings, helping them anticipate and think through the kinds of questions and issues they should be ready to discuss.

Marketing

ReUp has developed a platform that enables us to engage with students "where they are" at different points in the re-entry process. In order to reach students with varying communication preferences, ReUp contacts students across multiple channels including phone, email, SMS, survey, social media, and targeted advertising and tracks their engagement with each to determine preference.

ReUp’s comprehensive outreach campaigns take into account the following strategic pillars:

● Learner Stage - may vary, but generally includes Awareness, Consideration, Nurturing, Conversion, and Persistence through to graduation. Each stage has its own objectives, message, tone and call to action.

● Audience - is made up of our learnings from the data enrichment, and persona based segmentation of your population of adult learners with some college and no credential. ReUp will also take into consideration what our learners are thinking and feeling throughout their journey.

● Touchpoints - will be mapped out to address the needs and feelings of each audience including the role of the touchpoint and the key performance indicators associated.

● Content - will be created for each touchpoint taking into account the purpose of the content, voice, tone, and key message type.

● Data - will be mapped out with measurement planning, and use of data collected at each stage powering a connected experience.

● Technology - is critical to powering this experience so that it feels congruous, relevant, and valuable to the learner, while enabling a combination of learner-led steps and human interaction where needed.

*Sample Learner Stage

The use of multiple platforms and consideration given to students’ communication needs are indicative of ReUp’s larger commitment to inclusivity. All campaigns and landing pages are built in responsive design, adapting to whatever device works best for students.

*Example of Co-Branded Landing Pages

In a commitment to a more equitable experience in higher education for all, ReUp performs regular audits for WCAG2.1 Level AA Success Criteria at a minimum as well as following any ADA guidelines. In addition to the audits, and in order to ensure our communications, materials, and assets meet this expectation we have installed industry leading automated tools that further discover, provide recommendations, and enhance the user experience for all who need further assistance. Accessibility certificates are available upon request.

Data, Insights and Recommendations

ReUp has accrued millions of engagement activities across emails, SMS exchanges, surveys, coaching sessions, and more. ReUp will provide summary statistics about our activities and learner responses, highlighting trends and opportunities.

Each partner has a dedicated Partner Success Manager aiming to reach the full potential of the partnership goals. Our Partner Success Managers have a keen understanding of each partner’s objectives. They have access to key performance indicators (KPIs) that are used as a guidepost for the success of the partnership and the satisfaction of the Partner and key Stakeholders. Insights and recommendations are shared with the Institution during Partnership Reviews.

Partnership reviews are initiated after 90 days of launch.

Key KPIs include:

● Common questions asked by learners to their coaches

● Student Achievement Trends based on LDA, GPA, Credits Completed, Debt/holds, etc.

● Initial Drop Reason

● Motivation to Return

● Number of Engagements, before and after re-enrollment

● Effectiveness of Outreach Channels

● Number of Enrollments

● Pipeline and Enrollment Forecasting

● Recovered Tuition

● Graduated students

● Data Enrichment

*Sample from a Partnership Review presentation

*Sample Data Enrichment analysis

ReUp’s approach to re-enrolling stopout students identifies the barriers and friction that exist in the process. In simple terms, we assess the barriers that students have in their lives and help them understand and overcome those barriers.

The friction in the process is institutional-based and includes policies and processes that inhibit students’ ability or willingness to re-enroll and ultimately succeed.

To that end, ReUp continually monitors the student experience to identify opportunities to remove institutional friction or bottlenecks, improve efficiencies, and refine processes for current, former and future students . ReUp will make recommendations offering best practices and proven strategies found to be most effective in making an institution more appealing and accessible to SCNC learners. To provide continuity of care, we may include Success Coaches in these partnership meetings so that they can share specific student examples and we can collaborate on “case management.”

*Sample from Partnership Review - Recommendations

ReUp then provides ongoing feedback to institutions in these areas that is formalized in semi-annual Partnership Reviews. These Partnership Reviews include updates about the current re-enrollment & transfer funnel, success rates, and data about the stopout population (reasons for stopping-out, motivations for returning to complete, etc).

Additional – FAQs What are the overall benefits for our institution?

● Leverage a new enrollment stream by targeting re-admits, with ReUp achieving outcomes 4x that of CCC.

● Offload labor intensive, low yield work, like outbound phone campaigns, to ReUp to allow CCC personnel to focus on current students, retention efforts and re-enrolling low LDA students with a high conversion rate

● Data enrichment is performed by ReUp to locate and verify learner contact information, as much of CCC’s contact information on these stopped out learners will be outdated.

● Lean on patented technology developed and used by ReUp to scale, personalize outreach, dynamically build student personas, track trends and more.

● Scale engagement and outreach with ReUp’s use of multiple channels including phone, email, SMS, survey, social media, and targeted advertising.

● Increase enrollment by maximizing the potential of a key student population. Stopped out students have already chosen you once. ReUp’s research indicates that 90% of stopouts still desire to complete. In order to achieve this, they need personalized support, which many are not able to provide at scale.

● Increase graduation rates through an additional avenue to complement your retention work.

● Support students on 1:1 basis throughout coaching to re-enroll and to persist.

● Minimize risk of allocating resources to engage stopped out students by only paying for success. The outreach and support activities are performed by ReUp’s team, allowing your team to focus on top priorities.

● Get actionable insights from ReUp’s feedback about your stopout population. These include the reasons students stopped out, their motivations for returning, and trends in the specific barriers that your students are facing in order to return.

● Equip your team with new ideas for supporting the success of returning students with personalized recommendations and proven best practices shared by ReUp’s team based on experience working with other higher education partners. .

What would be CCC’s responsibilities in the partnership?

● Provide stopout data to ReUp both initially and on an ongoing basis.

● Share CCC’s re-enrollment/transfer process, procedures, and available support services.

● Make the admission decision for any returning/transfer student.

● Provide normal services to re-enrolled students (package students for financial aid, provide academic advising, etc.)

What would be ReUp’s responsibilities in the partnership?

● Learn CCC’s re-enrollment/transfer policies and procedures.

● Facilitate the communication process for reaching out to former students via multiple communication channels.

● Guide and support students as they consider and prepare to return, through the re-enrollment process, and as they persist to complete their program.

● Systematically collect data about returning students such as why they stopped out and their motivations for returning, and share that information with CCC.

● Observe and document re-enrollment patterns, trends in the challenges students are facing, nuances of specific returning stopout populations - and share this information with CCC.