When I started my position in December 2025, Jenny* had been working in my department for over two years. When she started her position, she was an eighteen-year-old straight out of high school. It was a rocky first year, both academically and professionally. But of course, I didn’t know any of this until much later.

Upon first impression, Jenny is perky and enthusiastic. As a member of the front desk staff, she answers the phone with a clear, friendly tone and explain things well to callers. Soon, however, I learned that what she exhibits to the public isn’t exactly how she is in real life. In short, she puts on a face but behind the scenes, Jenny is extremely chatty, almost to a fault, and she gossips about others most often in the most unflattering tone.

I’d noticed this behavior in Jenny and had talked to my colleagues and my boss about how I should handle the situation. But I never got around to it, for one day in the middle of March, just two weeks after I became her official supervisor (my boss was her temporary supervisor while they searched for my position), I received a surprising email.

The email stated that Jenny was not eligible to work in our department because she was not enrolled as a student. Confused, I forwarded the email to my boss, who was also confused, as all student employees in our department were enrolled, and advised me to contact someone in the Registrar’s office.

So I did just that.

What I discovered was shocking. No, Jenny was not officially enrolled in classes and hadn’t been for two terms. The question became: how in the world was she allowed to continue working for us when she was not a student? After all, it was a student position.

I soon discovered that the reason behind the drop in enrollment was twofold. One, because her grades had dipped below 2.0, which meant she was not eligible for financial aid (the rules for financial aid, including loans was that you needed to maintain a 2.0 or above GPA, and Jenny had had a GPA below 2.0 for two years). Two, because she wasn’t receiving any financial aid, she couldn’t figure out another way to pay for school, so she dropped out…and didn’t say a word. For two semesters, Jenny went on and continued working as if everything was fine. It wasn’t fine. She wasn’t enrolled and hadn’t come to us for any guidance.

It was a Friday when I discovered all of this information. She was working that day, so I called her into my office, explained the situation and said, “Were you ever going to tell us about this?” And you know what she said?

After confirming that no, she was not enrolled in classes, she said, “I didn’t think I needed to say anything. I mean, I’m planning on taking classes this summer so I thought I was still an active student…”

This was either naivete on her part or on ours, I couldn’t figure it out. Then I remembered a month earlier, during the current semester when she told me that she couldn’t attend a staff meeting because she had choir class. Clearly, she did not. She had been lying the whole time.

Her dishonesty went back so far, it was baffling. And yet, I couldn’t fault Jenny…at least not entirely. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that Jenny’s behavior is typical of those students who are passed over, ignored in higher education. You know the types. Jenny grew up near The Villages in Florida, in one of those cookie cutter communities and attended a charter high school, where she graduated in the 89th percentile, which meant she was not the best but not the worst either. Just average. And when she began her classes at this university an hour and a half away from home, I imagine that she must’ve felt like a fish out of water, struggling to breathe, and after realizing that college is a lot harder than high school, gave up on trying. But on the surface, she didn’t want to admit to others that she’d failed.

I felt bad for Jenny, especially when I had to let her go. After confirming with HR that she was not allowed to stay employed with us, I called her into my office again and explained the situation. She nodded as if she understood. It was almost jarring how she did not push back like I thought she would. Once upon a time, Jenny was the type who challenged the rules and conventions but there she was, nodding as if she knew what was coming.

This experience taught me that there must be more students like Jenny in higher education than there appears to be. We all want our children succeed, and yet, what we are doing to help them? I remember being a freshman in a college two hours from home, feeling lost and confused and realizing that college was indeed much harder than high school but also not wanting to fail because I had high expectations of myself and besides, my parents also had high expectations of me.

It’s not to say that Jenny’s parents don’t–I know nothing about them, so I can’t make any assumptions–but I do know that the transition can be difficult for a number of students, particularly in the mental health area. Skills such as time management, prioritization and decision-making are being learned in college and without the appropriate tools and resources, it’s that much harder to succeed. We simply cannot let students like Jenny continue on failing classes for two years. We have to really pay attention to the forgotten “middle child” of higher education.

*not her real name