Hazelden Betty Ford Graduate School created a pathway for students to earn a master’s degree without a bachelor’s. Officials say the program helps passionate students find their footing and fills much-needed workforce roles in the counseling field. Kevin Doyle, president of Hazelden Betty Ford Graduate School, said the institution was inspired to launch the program to open doors for passionate students whose academic and career journeys weren’t a straight path and to fill gaps in the counseling workforce. “We frequently got calls from people who badly wanted to come to our school, and in the initial screening, they would disclose that they didn’t have a bachelor’s degree,” Doyle said. “We often could feel the passion that they had and wanted to be helpful to these folks. But thinking narrowly—before we did more exploration of this concept, we just referred them to go back and finish their bachelor’s degree and call us, two years from now, four years from now, whatever.”