Alyssa Pecholt’s journey to her master’s degree was heartbreaking.
In 2023, then a graduate student at Minneapolis College, he was working for his then-employer at an information table at an event at another university when he overheard staff from nearby Hazelden Betty Ford Graduate School talking about their new Alternative Admissions Pathways program. This program, which was started that year, allows students to enroll in a master’s program without completing a bachelor’s degree.
Pecholt was surprised.
When he was about to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in human services, he wasn’t sure how he would go about it but knew from his experience learning through the prison re-enlistment program that he needed more education to reach his goals. He expected to advance to a bachelor’s program and graduate.
Pecholt’s casual conversation soon turned into a place to hire Hazelden Betty Ford.
“It was the answer to all my problems—it would be faster, it would end up costing less money than doing my four-year bachelor’s course and then another two years for a master’s,” he said. “They were friendly and welcoming, and explained the program well … So, I got a contact, and I applied that day.”
In her acceptance speech, Pecholt wrote about how she grew up in a low-income family with substance abuse and mental health issues. She emphasized how her background inspired her to pursue a degree in counseling, noting her work in the re-entry program and more.
Pecholt was one of eight students in the first batch of the differential admissions program. He graduated last year and was recently licensed as a drug and alcohol counselor in Minnesota.
Hazelden Betty Ford now has 67 students enrolled through the Alternative Admissions Pathway.
Inspired by Creativity
Kevin Doyle, president of Hazelden Betty Ford Graduate School, said the institution was motivated to launch this program to open doors to students who are interested in academics and non-traditional courses and to fill gaps in counseling staff.
“We used to get calls from people who wanted badly to come to our school, and at the first screening, they would reveal that they didn’t have a bachelor’s degree,” Doyle said. “We used to feel the passion that they had and we wanted to be of help to these people. But I think a little bit—before we explored this concept further, we would just tell them to go back and finish their bachelor’s degree and call us, two years from now, four years from now, whatever.”
He noted that many of the prospective students are often motivated to pursue counseling because of their personal journeys, such as past drug use problems or family experiences. Many also bring some experience without having a degree.
“They’re working in this setting with people who have substance abuse problems, and yet they can’t move on to clinical jobs because they don’t have the right letters after their name. The way I say it is we’re trading work experience for a regular curriculum,” Doyle said.
Doyle emphasized that despite not requiring a bachelor’s degree, not all applicants apply. He mentioned that prospective students need to show that they can do the job. In reviewing applications, he said, Hazelden Betty Ford looks for applicants to demonstrate eligibility through work history and other credentials, such as addiction counseling certification, participation in professional activities and volunteer experience in treatment programs, among other indicators.
Although charterers are often accused of disrupting the establishment of higher education, Doyle credits Barbara Gellman-Danley of the Higher Learning Commission with promoting the initiative. Doyle said in her speech at the HLC conference, Gellman-Danley urged member institutions to think smarter. After the conference, he contacted HLC, Hazelden Betty Ford’s accreditor, to determine if the graduate school could accept students without a bachelor’s degree and was told nothing in their standards prohibited it. From there, Doyle went to the faculty and worked with them to begin laying the groundwork for introducing another admissions program.
Although Higher Learning Commission standards do not prohibit programs like Hazelden Betty Ford’s, their existence is rare. HLC officials said Within Higher Ed they do not follow such efforts.
Tracking Results
Robert Kelchen, a professor of education at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, said Within Higher Ed that Hazelden Betty Ford’s approach is consistent with pushing the broader higher education industry to “do things faster, faster, better, and see what works.”
Kelchen pointed to competency-based education and the increasing deployment of three-year bachelor’s degrees with reduced credit as similar examples of colleges innovating to “save time and money for students” and “get people out of the workforce faster.”
But, he cautioned that some students may need more preparation and support to succeed.
He suggested that the approval of the approver might be an obstacle, although it was not for Hazelden Betty Ford. As regulators face increased scrutiny from the Trump administration, which has accused such agencies of driving up costs and stifling innovation, Kelchen suspects they are likely to adapt.
“Credit providers are also being forced to work harder and innovate, and I think this will come to a point where lenders will give institutions the opportunity to try new things, but they will also need to act quickly if things don’t work and monitor carefully,” said Kelchen.
Doyle emphasized Kelchen’s point about the results.
“The last thing we would want to do is exploit or take advantage of any team, so we have been following the lead. [outcomes] from the beginning: grade point average, retention rate, graduation rate and some qualitative data, including interviews with faculty and students themselves in the program about what their experience has been like,” Doyle said.
So far, Doyle has been encouraged by the initial results, noting that students in the reception program are showing similar levels of success as their peers. However, he noted that there is still not enough data on graduation rates, which would help provide a clearer sense of graduation outcomes.
Pecholt, an early success story, is putting her qualifications into counseling. As a beneficiary of a different admissions program, he encouraged other institutions to think more carefully about what qualifies students to do graduate-level counseling work. Some of the most valuable experiences, he said, won’t come with a graduate degree.
He urged the programs considering these methods to do so with an open mind to the applicants.
“There’s going to be people who have long-term addiction problems and are in recovery, who got really bad grades, who may have spent time in jail or prison or had bad lives,” Pecholt said. “There’s a lot of stigma attached to that, and it doesn’t exclude anyone from being a good counselor, a good therapist or deserving of a good education, whatever that is.”
