Alyssa Pecholt’s journey to her master’s degree was serendipitous.

In 2023, then a student finishing her associate degree at Minneapolis College, she was working an information table for her then-employer at an event at another university when she overheard Hazelden Betty Ford Graduate School employees at an adjacent booth talking about their fledgling Alternative Admissions Pathways program. The program, launched that year, allows students to enroll in a master’s program without first completing a bachelor’s degree.

Pecholt was stunned.

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