Salt Lake Community College Partners with GradGuard to Support Student Withdrawals

For Ryan Thoroman, Bursar at Salt Lake Community College, partnering with GradGuard is rooted in a simple belief: difficult moments in a student's life shouldn't be the ending point of their college journey.

Before GradGuard, the college was processing a high volume of registration appeals for drops, with between half a million and a million dollars in lost charges annually. Watching the time and effort his staff was putting into adjustments — and the sheer volume of cases — made it clear that the college was losing significant money, and that all of the liability in those situations was falling on the institution.

GradGuard Tuition Insurance changed the equation. As Thoroman explains it, the product is a form of financial protection that goes beyond tuition and fees to also cover room and board and other expenses. For students, that translates into peace of mind: if something happens that falls under a covered reason, they can trust the insurance will make them whole.

The benefits have shown up across the institution. The college now has more consistency in how it handles exceptional student situations. It is saving a substantial amount of money — money that's being reinvested in ways that better support students. And for a college that takes pride in breaking cycles of generational poverty through the opportunities it provides, tuition insurance plays a real role. "I don't want some unfortunate situation that occurs for a student to be that difference between them being able to get a college degree and not," Thoroman says. He would recommend GradGuard Tuition Insurance.