Hiring an Associate who is a "2-y Associate Program" dropout - risky?

Is it risky to hire an Associate who would be leaving ~1/2 way through his Associate program? They have been transparent about rationale but am wondering if this is considered a red flag?

They have made it clear that references from previous jobs would be stellar but references from the PE firm might be poor because leaving early is frowned upon (they indicated that outside of this circumstance, the reference would be average). 

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