Messing up when younger, and then doing better when older, is a theme that schools have seen before. There are many cases of students who went back to community college after some number of years working or in the services, and then went on to do well at very good universities.
Colleges are often ranked according to their graduation rate. One of my ongoing complaints about this is that it doesn’t count the cases where a previously weak student goes to community college, does very well, and then goes on to a very good university and graduates there. This is a big success for the community college and the student, even if the student never gets a degree from the CC.