Kimberly Andrews Espy is nearing the one-year mark as the president of Wayne State as the university experiences near-record enrollment and rising graduation rates.
Soon after she started last August, Wayne State welcomed 4,450 new students – one of the largest incoming undergraduate classes in its history – almost 60% of whom paid no tuition or fees.
The college was also ranked as a top university in the country for its efforts to provide social and economic prosperity to students with the most financial need. This spring, WSU continued its climb, graduating more than 3,800 students, up nearly 3,400 graduates in 2023.
Wayne State University, Oakland University and University of Michigan-Dearborn are among the schools with the highest growth in four-year graduation success rates. At Wayne State, students finishing a degree or certificate within four years increased from 23.4% to 50.1% in the last decade.
But Espy’s first year has also come with challenges. Chiefly, she said, the federal government’s “hugely bumpy” rollout of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form. The attempt to make the process simpler for students resulted in hiccups that delayed financial aid packages. The issue led to FAFSA completion rate declines at most Michigan colleges, including Wayne State, Espy noted.
However, since Wayne State’s enrollment deposit deadline ended June 1, the university is catching up to where it was last year for new student orientation reservations and first-year enrollment, said Wayne State Senior Director of Admissions Ericka Matthews-Jackson. Currently, 34% of students enrolled last school year have filed a 2024-25 FAFSA. Last year at this time, that number was 39%. And for first year students, the completion rate is 59% while last year’s number was 67%.
BridgeDetroit and Bridge Michigan recently spoke with Wayne State’s first female president about the botched FAFSA revamp as well as the university’s increasing graduation rates, its role in Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Sixty by 30 plan to boost educational attainment post-high school and Espy’s other goals for Wayne State.
The interview took place days before pro-Palestinian protesters set up an encampment on Wayne State’s campus. The camp stayed up for a week outside of State Hall before it was taken down by university police. Twelve people were arrested, but eventually released. A university spokesman declined further comment from Espy beyond prior statements sent out to the university community.
Editor’s note: This transcript was lightly edited for length and clarity.
BridgeDetroit: Accelerating the (upward) mobility of students and empowering health for urban neighborhoods are some of your goals for Wayne State. How are you working on those?
Espy: Those are two elements of what we’re calling the Wayne State Prosperity Agenda.
What I’ve heard over and over again from stakeholder groups is that, fundamentally, Wayne State is a university of opportunity. We’re one that opens our doors as widely as we can, that enables going to college and that prepares you for what comes next.
The first pillar (of the Prosperity Agenda) is accelerating mobility. One of the things we know is that Wayne State faculty have always taken full advantage of being in the heart of Detroit.
We have a college-to-career effort that is about celebrating and making that more visible to our students and families because we recognize coming to college is an investment. It’s an investment in yourself, it’s an investment in your family and it’s an investment in the sense of meaning and purpose for a future.
(For) empowering health in our urban neighborhoods, we have an outstanding medical school, the largest in the country relative to a single campus medical school. Our health care system is generally oriented toward tertiary care: waiting until you get sick and then intervening. But here at Wayne, we think about how do we provide primary and preventive care so to not wait until you get sick. Hopefully you avert that trajectory so you can avoid some of those debilitating diseases. We know in the heart of Detroit the disparities in cancer and diabetes and health and heart disease are huge.
We’re doing the initial studies around creating a school of public health. We’re expanding our mobile health unit that targets vans to go into communities and deliver care at churches and community hubs and grocery stores.
And then our last (pillar) is fueling innovation for our regional competitiveness. We are redeveloping and re-invigorating our support to turn those faculty ideas into actual products to support our neighborhood businesses through TechTown, Wayne State’s research and technology park, to enable those small businesses to go from idea to a legit thing that’s earning money and providing resources back to our community.
Bridge Michigan: Gov. Whitmer’s Sixty by 30 plan has set the goal that 60% of working age adults will have a school certificate or college degree by 2030. Where do you see Wayne State fitting into that?
Espy: I am excited about Gov. Whitmer’s leadership in promoting and celebrating the role of post-secondary education, whether it be at a community college or at a four-year, or both. A university like Wayne State plays a critical role in achieving that Sixty by 30 milestone. We are unique in that we are the state’s only public research, urban university who’s right here in the heart of the city.
When I think about that, we have a couple of obligations. First of all, the Michigan Achievement Scholarship and we have already seen the benefits of that. Particularly for Wayne State, where we know the biggest barrier for families in terms of thinking about pursuing higher education for their students is financial. Let’s just be clear; When you couple the Pell (grant), the Michigan Achievement Scholarship and our own financial aid programs, whether it be the Wayne State Guarantee, the Heart of Detroit (Tuition Pledge), or the Detroit Promise (scholarship), suddenly you began to have a widespread impact on the ability for students to afford college. This last fall, 59% of our incoming class paid no tuition and no fees. That’s six out of every 10 incoming students. Overall, our applications were up tremendously, our enrollment was up tremendously and that makes a huge difference relative to achieving that notion of Sixty by 30.
BridgeDetroit: What is Wayne State doing to encourage Detroit high schoolers to enroll?
Espy: We have specific Detroit recruiters, a team that goes out to our high schools. And we have a number of different events. We have a new student day for prospective students, we have Admitted Student days and we do these all throughout the spring so that we get people on campus. We (also) partner with the Detroit College Access Network. That’s a really important part of what we do.
Bridge Michigan: The university has increased its graduation rates. Can you talk about how you got to that point and what’s next?
Espy: Wayne State has spent a lot of time over the last decade increasing our graduation rates and quite frankly, 20 years ago, they were very far from national best practices. To make those kinds of changes you look at literally everything you do and reorient it toward supporting our students. We have focused on what we call a student success strategy.
First of all, being very intentional about communicating to our students that they’re welcome here and that they belong here. We have a number of different programs both culturally specific as well as culturally broadening to communicate that to students.
No. 2, we’ve worked very hard on being intentional about our process of advising students relative to degree completion; doing that from day one, having a very specific degree curriculum and path. We also do things like monitor their grades early on because one of the things we know is that if in the first four weeks, on your first test you’re not doing so well, then you tend not to do so well in the course. If we can intervene early, we can provide tutoring and peer mentoring and support.
Now, our graduation rates do reflect national best practices. There are about 60% (the percentage of students that graduate on time). Sure it’s the majority, but that isn’t everybody. So, we’re not done. How do we take the next step to do even more? In my mind, every student should be able to graduate on time.
Bridge Michigan: How is Wayne State handling the FAFSA rollout?
Espy: We have outreach sessions, we’ve done 40 of them. We’ve moved our deadlines back. This has been a hugely bumpy rollout. Despite our applications being up, our admissions being up for this fall, our FAFSA completions are down (to 34% from 39% this time last year for returning students). People don’t pay attention to what actually is happening on the ground, that it really is going to impact – at least to have a little bit of a blip this fall and any blip sets us back. I mean, you see what happened with the pandemic. It impaired students’ ability to go, to engage, and now we’re recovering from that. The same thing is true with the FAFSA, so our fingers are crossed.
Bridge Michigan Reporter Isabel Lohman contributed to this story.