The Établissement Public d’Insertion de la Défense (EPIDE) is one of the support schemes for young adults without recognised educational or vocational qualifications. It aims to put them back into an educational setting and prepare them to enter the workforce with the help of a socio-educational programme delivered in a military-style weekly boarding school. The purpose of this article is to understand, first, the reasons that lead to educational dropouts signing up to this system despite the constraints of the boarding school and its military form, and secondly the reasons why they stay the course. To do this, I draw on direct observation in two EPIDE centres, combined with interviews with young people and senior staff. The article first presents the general principles of EPIDE and then assesses the role of time and the decisive event in the process of re-connection. It then identifies what motivates young people to stick with it, which cannot be reduced to career goals because it comes from causes that are extrinsic and intrinsic to the scheme. Revealing these causes is done in such a way as to locate the commitment of young unqualified adults within a sequence that begins before they commit to the scheme, continues with the act of commitment (“signing updropping back in”) and is extended through their state of commitment (“staying the course”).Read less <