The Rant Podcast
A bi-weekly podcast focused on pulling back the curtain on the American higher education system and breaking down the people, the policies and the politics. The podcast host, Eloy Ortiz Oakley, is a known innovator and leader in higher education. The podcast will not pull any punches as it delves into tough questions about the culture, politics and policies of our higher education system.
The Rant Podcast
Innovation in Professional Degree Programs with Andy Vaughn
Discover the transformative journey of Alliant International University with insights from Andy Vaughn, its President and CEO, as he unveils the institution's strategic focus on professional practice degrees in mental health, nursing, and teaching, all designed for state licensure. Andy shares the university’s storied legacy of inclusivity and social justice, along with its evolution into a top provider of licensed clinical psychologists in the U.S. Since 2015, Alliant has honed its mission, emphasizing global thinking, diversity, and the innovative use of technology to advance higher education.
Uncover the secrets behind the affordability and effectiveness of Alliant's clinical PsyD program in California, where graduates enjoy strong employment prospects and low student loan default rates. The episode explores how gainful employment regulations have adapted to the unique journey of clinical psychologists and delves into the increased demand for mental health professionals post-pandemic. We also spotlight Alliant's unique governance model, highlighting its partnership with Bertelsmann, which supports long-term educational growth, particularly in addressing critical shortages within health sciences. Join us to learn how AI is reshaping higher education at Alliant, empowering staff to tackle complex challenges while keeping curricula globally relevant.
https://www.alliant.edu
Hi, I'm Eloy Ortiz-Oakley and welcome back to the Ramp, the podcast where we pull back the curtain and break down the people, the policies and the politics of our higher education system. In this episode, I get to sit down with the president and CEO of Alliant International University, andy Vaughn. Alliant offers professional practice degrees in high-demand areas such as mental health, nursing and teaching, to name a few. I will talk to Andy about the work he leads at Alliant and how his institution's unique governance structure provides support and continuity for their learners. So with that, andy, welcome to the RENT podcast.
Speaker 2:Eloy, it's great to be here. I've heard a lot about this podcast, I've listened to the podcast and obviously we have a couple of years of knowing each other. It's great to be here.
Speaker 1:It's great to have you, Andy, and really appreciate the time you're taking to talk with us and to help our listeners learn more about the great work at Alliant International University. So let's start there, Andy. So Alliant International has been around for some time. It's gone through some changes in the last five, 10 years. Tell us about the university's mission and about your vision for the university going forward.
Speaker 2:We are a professional practice university that is laser focused on very specific graduate level programs, most of which lead to state licensure. So you know, alliant is the product of about five different mergers over the last 85 to 90 years, and one of the things that all of our schools have had in common, though, going back to the turn of the century, is breaking glass ceilings and inclusivity and really fighting for the underdog, and I don't know if that was by design. That was well before our time when these mergers first happened, back in the 1930s and 40s and 50s. But it's pretty spectacular to know you're part of an organization that, in its DNA to its core, going back to the early 1900s, was doing the right thing, because it was the right thing to do. Meaning. When we found our first article about nine years ago from the San Francisco Chronicle, our law school at that time, alliance, started with several different schools. One was Balboa College, which was a law school. Back in the early 1900s in California, we saw that we had graduated the first two females with a JD degree, and that shouldn't be news, but it was at the time. I think it was 1917, 1918. It was front page time, and the reason I bring that up is because it just goes to show you how deep we go back in our history of doing the right thing, because it's the right thing to do.
Speaker 2:Now. Everybody does DEI and inclusivity. Today, at least, most everybody does because they want to do it, probably, but they have to do it for survival. We've been doing this for dozens, if not over a hundred, years, and so for me it's great to be part of an organization that is inclusive. The way we write our curriculum, the way we teach. We teach our students to be global thinkers. We teach them to be open-minded. We teach them to be open to new ideas, different cultures, different kinds of people, and I think that's part of what we do as a mission and purpose-driven university, and at that time we were doing a lot of things across the globe.
Speaker 2:We had at that time about 12 campuses and we could easily see that we were not focused on any three to five things. Much like you and I, on New Year's Eve we think about our New Year's resolutions, and if someone says, hey, what's your New Year's resolution, you say I've got 200 things I want to do next year. You know as well as I do you're going to do none of those. That's just too many, you don't have the right focus. Alliant was that back in 2015, trying to do everything possible, we really narrowed it down to say, okay, we're only going to do what we're the best at or one of the best at, and that was graduate level programs that lead to state licensure. So over the last nine years we've actually become the largest educational provider of licensed clinical psychologists in the entire United States. A little over 10% of all licensed psychologists in the country come from our California School of Professional Psychology and in California about 40% do. We've also grown our marriage family therapy licensure program. We launched social work about a year and a half ago, and then we have clinical counseling as well.
Speaker 2:But you look at the 55-year history of our School of Psychology. It really is impressive on who we attract, who our alumni are. We have best-selling authors. We have a sitting US Congressperson right now. We have leaders. We have motivational speakers. That of course, clinicians across the globe. And you mentioned it too Our school of education has really grown quite nicely In California, by the way, an education credential to teach K-12 is a graduate-level program too that leads to licensure. And then you mentioned we launched our new School of Nursing and Health Sciences in Phoenix that's our new campus about six months ago. So our mission hasn't changed. Even through all these dozens of years in different schools, that's remained the same. What we've changed is how we operate. Of course, embracing technology is a part of that. In the last nine years too, right, but that's really done it well to have really spectacular growth in our enrollments but also growth intellectually for a university.
Speaker 1:You mentioned these professional graduate programs, such as the one that you were talking about, the clinical psychology and mental health licensure. You are one of the nation's largest provider of those graduates. Tell us about the different component parts that have made up Align University. You know, because it's interesting to me, we talk a lot about mergers these days. We just not too long ago saw the merger of Brandman University with the University of Massachusetts. We've seen mergers over at the University of Arizona and Purdue and other places of Arizona and Purdue and other places. So we think that that's a recent phenomenon, but it sounds like Lion has been going through that for many, many years. So can you tell us a little bit about those component parts and how you've built a culture around some of those mergers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you nailed it. That's the most important part. It's probably the most overlooked part of an acquisition or a merger is how do the cultures blend? How does that work? Because that really is what destroys an acquisition or a merger is right there. So if we go back to the first mergers, that happened, oh gosh, probably 75, 80 years ago, maybe longer. It was Balboa College, california Western University forming to come together and formed later in the 1950s a university called United States International University, better known in San Diego as USIU. Usiu also had campuses all over the world, including Africa and Europe and other locations Asia, japan, china and USIU had its financial struggles up through the 1990s and had kind of run out of rope. At that point I think they had declared bankruptcy or were close to it. And then there's the California School of Professional Psychology. That was an independent university operating with APA accredited clinical psychology programs off on its own and they were doing fine, but they needed to have probably a larger infrastructure. Those two schools merged. That's our last major merger.
Speaker 2:Usiu and CSPP came together to form Alliant University about 24, 25 years ago now. That was our last major one and the reason the name Alliant was chosen is because of the history of mergers that had happened decades before. Alliant is a play on words. It's an alliance of schools to form Alliant University. The throwback to USIU is the word international, so that stayed in the name. That's why it's Alliant International University, because CSPP got to keep their name as a school within the Alliant system, keep their name as a school within the Alliance system and that's how it all happened back in about the year 2000, 1999 or so. And then what happened is I wasn't here at the time but talking to some faculty and we have a lot of faculty have been around 30, 40 years. They remember this last big acquisition merger yes faculty remember everything they do.
Speaker 2:They do, they have great memories, and our faculty stay for a long time, which is great. By the way, not every university can say that, and I think for us, having that historical knowledge is really important to understand. But that has been a question you asked. Very important to me, too is how do these cultures blend? I actually found a mutual friend who wrote her dissertation about this merger and I read it from cover to cover and it really addressed the culture part in a very wonderful way. But that's what USIU and CSPP had in common is inclusivity, fighting for the underdog, really paying attention to DEI before DEI was even a known term, and that, I think, how those cultures came together.
Speaker 2:We attract people that truly care about human rights. We attract people and that's faculty and staff and students that are alumni and administrators. It's the kind of person we attract that has a really good heart. You know they obviously have to have other skills and credentials too, so the kinds of jobs that we hire for, but I think one thing that we've had in common for over a hundred years is a good heart. Are you doing this for the right reasons? Do you have a passion about human rights? Do you have a passion about doing what's right? And then the value system that we instilled about nine years ago. Most of those were foundational, not even aspirational. They were already existing in our school system. We just had to codify them. We call them the impact values and the I. By the way, the very first letter stands for inclusivity, and that's our first and most important value, and that really is the commonality we had in our culture we had in our culture.
Speaker 1:Well, that sounds like a wonderful history. You also have a history of ensuring that your learners go through these programs and land in the careers of their choice. I mean, learners are coming to you for a specific purpose. They want to get into mental health, they want to get into healthcare, they want to get into teaching. So they have a pretty clear idea. How do you ensure that they land in the careers that they're hoping to get into?
Speaker 2:career in mental health practitioner, k-12 education classroom teacher or school counselor, school psychology principal or nursing or health sciences career, because they've had this in their DNA. It's a very passion-driven decision for them, especially for the teachers and the clinicians on mental health licensure programs. We learned from our surveys that most of them had a really positive experience somewhere in their life where maybe a therapist or a psychologist helped them through a very tough time or maybe a trauma in their life or from their childhood, whatever it might be, and that inspired them to want to do the same to help others. And, ironically enough, our K-12 teacher candidates had sometimes a bad experience to make them want to become a teacher. It inspired them to actually say you know what? I'm going to be a part of the solution of the teacher shortage and I want to be a great teacher. But most of them had a positive experience. A great teacher inspired them to want to be a teacher too, and we're seeing that with our nurses too. Typically they have a friend or a family member that's in healthcare. That inspired them to do the same and so with that, that helps a lot for student completion rates.
Speaker 2:By the way, because they have this passion, they didn't come in and go. I don't know what I want to do. What do you think? And that sounds good? That's not the way they come into Alliant. They really come to us, they know exactly what they want to do and we've been able to teach out our more general programs. We don't offer liberal studies anymore. We don't do general business degrees. We really decided about a decade ago just to have very specific outcomes and licenses that people want that lead to a very specific gainful employment In higher ed. As you know, it's called a SIP code, but it is a very specific license that students pursue through our programs and about 90% of our students are in a program that leads to a state license.
Speaker 1:You are a private institution and for most people these days, they associate high cost with private institutions. How have you been able to keep your professional practice programs affordable, Because they are relatively affordable compared to some of your competitors.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So let's take a couple of programs as an example. So clinical psychology programs are very expensive to run. Clinical psychology programs are very expensive to run. Your faculty-student ratios for APA accreditation guidelines have to be a pretty low threshold. And we meet all of that, which does add to the expense, and rightfully so. It adds to quality of the program. That's great.
Speaker 2:And we are the, if not the least expensive among the least expensive clinical PsyD, if not the least expensive along the least expensive clinical PsyD doctoral program, apa accredited programs in the state of California. We know that for sure. We do that probably by just making sure that we run efficiently. In other areas of the university K-12 teaching credentials in California can cost as little as $10,000, as much as $30,000. We're kind of right probably in that lower percentile, 25 percentile price. And again, I think we do that just because we're not into price gouging. We are very deliberate about pricing. We do a lot of research about pricing before we bring a program to market.
Speaker 2:We actually lowered prices of some programs about five years ago. I remember when the email went out. You're programmed to think. A few of them replied I can't believe you're raising tuition. And we replied back we're not. We're actually lowering it for that program, and so it was one of those surprise emails I think was well-received, obviously, but I think for us if the margin's a little bit smaller, so be it.
Speaker 2:But for us it was really important to not price gouge and not lead to additional student debt. Now our students do take on debt I think most students do at most universities, right, but we try to look at that very carefully. Obviously, right now, in a post-COVID world, student loans have been in deferment for a period of four or five years. Now they're coming out Right, so everyone's default rate is zero right now, effectively. But prior to COVID happening, we were very proud that our student loan default rate was typically between one and 2%, sometimes up to three, but typically between one and 2%, and I think at that time the natural average was seven or eight, right, and there are some schools that are in the high teens on default rates, and so for us it's not something necessarily that the department always tracks to, but for us it was very important to track to that number because that tells us that our programs are leading most likely leading to specific gainful employment where a student can make a good living and pay their student loans back. Pay their student loans back.
Speaker 1:So these programs are primarily, as you mentioned, licensure programs. They're specific to a career field. How have the recent gainful employment language changes affected the way you think about your graduate students and how are they doing once they get into the workforce?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I started studying gainful employment back in its first iteration back in 2011 under the Obama administration, and did a special project for an organization at that time doing a deep dive. I spent a year studying the authorship of it and tracked that through the years. As you know, it got rescinded later. Well, it didn't pass the legal front in the first iteration, got wiped out from legal challenges back in the mid-2015 area, so got put back in, and then the Trump administration rescinded Gainful and then it obviously got rewritten a couple of years back and then it'll go into effect here this year in 2024. And we knew that was likely going to happen.
Speaker 2:I think when we go back nine years ago, we looked very closely at that and it was something that you have to be very deliberate about about your tuition prices, student loan, debt, what are your outcomes, completion rates and so it did inform us. It didn't guide us necessarily, because we were already doing everything well, but it did inform us on okay, where can we look at different aspects of our program outcomes on gainful employment measurements? I think for us, the big surprise was a little over two years ago. I got a call one night. By the way, when your regulatory attorney calls you and it's eight o'clock at night on a weeknight. You go. What is that call about? And he had hey, I saw the first draft of gainful that comes out tomorrow and your licensure programs did not get the extra time that you are going to need for them to get independent license. Let me just explain really briefly. So gainful measures at least in the 2024 version of the gainful. The prior version was different. The 2024 version of gainful measures income three years after completion of a program and looks at a student's, graduate's, salary versus their student loan debt and only a certain percent of that discretionary income can go to service alone. For us, great. If you look at the college scorecard, our graduates do very well in salaries. Right now the scorecard looks like it's measuring five years out.
Speaker 2:A lot of our programs are in that six-figure plus range, by the way. And so when a clinical psychologist graduates, they are doctors, just like medical doctors and dentists. They have to do residencies, making a very small stipend, and it's not our requirements, it's the state of California's requirement. Said hey, you think you misclassified our clinical psychology programs. They need another three years before you can measure income because you're measuring their income when they're still doing their post-degree required hours. They're not making a lot of money, and we worked with the department on that over a period of time and finally got that put into the final regulation as it should be.
Speaker 2:Because these are doctors too. They have the same requirements as MDs and DDS and others, and so for us, once we got that cleared with the department, I think we were in really good shape, and every other program's passing by a mile. So I think we're in really good shape. But to your earlier question about tuition rates, I think the lower tuition rates certainly helped. Informed on passing gainful employment regulations At this point. We look at all of our programs every quarter and we fare very well in gainful, so no big concerns there for our school. That's great to hear.
Speaker 1:How has the pandemic impacted your programs? I know for many of us who were in institutions or leading systems of higher education the pandemic really exposed the challenges we have with mental health services that administrators need, that faculty need, especially today in mental health services. How has this new environment impacted the way learners see the programs in mental health or has it impacted your enrollment in any way?
Speaker 2:It did. It had a positive impact on enrollment, especially for the licensure programs in mental health, believe it or not. The biggest one was marriage, family therapy, couples, family therapy. Now, I could and, by the way, I'm married to a marriage family therapist, so I want you to think about that for a moment when you're married to a marriage, family therapist.
Speaker 2:You're always in therapy, basically. So I think for us what we saw is the pandemic put a lot of strain on the family unit, and that could be a couple, it could be a couple with kids, it could be a couple with in-laws or parents living with them and, as you remember, in the first 18 months of the pandemic you were stuck at home a lot. That's right, and what we saw is a big strain on relationships, whether that be romantic relationships with partners or with kids or other members of your family that might be living with you or even not living with you, and so we saw a huge increase in interest in couples, family therapy, marriage family therapy. For that reason, now three of our licensure programs are taught in what's called a hybrid format, mostly online, but there are some residency requirements and obviously you have practicums and externships that you have to be in person for for those programs.
Speaker 2:But the toughest adjustment was the clinical psychology program. The APA requires that to be taught on ground and they had to quickly get permission and all their schools permission to go online, which they did, and that was probably the biggest struggle for faculty and students in that program because they were so used to meeting two or three times a week and then had to make that adjustment. But to their credit, they did a nice job. We did that for about a year and a half almost two years where that program was taught in mostly an online format. But both the demand went up for mental health practitioners, not just the hiring demand but the interest in those programs. We clearly saw an increase, especially in 2021 and 2022.
Speaker 1:So, andy, you are in the same boat that every other institutional leader is right now, trying to figure out how the rapid changes in technology are going to impact their institution, ai in particular. How are you thinking about these changes and how are you thinking about leveraging AI to improve the way that you serve your learners?
Speaker 2:Like most, we a couple of years ago, year and a half ago, put a team together with a leader, a defined vision and mission. Call it a charter statement about what the team was to do. And that includes faculty too, to look at what AI, especially the newest AI, would bring to the university world. And I think we, like most probably, got over our skis a little bit in the first six months, thinking this is going to happen right now, and I think one thing we've learned in the last couple of years is but right now we got to go, and I think one thing we've learned in the last couple of years is okay, it's happening and you better be on it, because it is going to change higher ed in every sector.
Speaker 2:However, maybe it's not going to happen quite as fast as we thought it would. I've personally tried probably a hundred different apps and AI programs and 90% of them are pretty average at best. I've tried the PowerPoint ones. We'll do your. This AI program can do your whole PowerPoint for you and it's pretty.
Speaker 2:I haven't found a good one yet on that, but in other aspects we've certainly adopted AI to take away the mundane task-driven work, especially for our student-facing staff, where AI can now inform them on prioritization, which is great. You know you can do that before with Microsoft. Some Microsoft programs that could automate, like automate a lot of your functions. But it's really improved in automation of mundane tasks for our staff. We want to free them up to spend more of their time on critical thinking skills on really complex problems that takes kind of a human brain, right now at least, to solve, and we've been fairly successful in doing that, especially in our credential programs, where credential analysts get a lot of contacts and students. What we found is about the same seven or eight questions from every student, and so AI can help automate a lot of that. Where then the calls that do come through that need human contact are those more complex problems. That's what we're really trying to do right now.
Speaker 2:Where AI is likely going to go, though, at least for us in higher education, is just one example of hundreds out there is. You know, we hear from our students and student surveys about how sometimes curriculum falls behind, and you've been in higher ed long enough to know that the world changes so quickly. Now your curriculum can be outdated six months after you write it. I think one of the things AI can do is basically cross-referencing what are the latest demands and changes, even in language or terminology, or where is the world going, and help keep us in check as a university to make sure that our curriculum is right there on what today's challenges are, so we can quickly change that. That'd be one example of hundreds out there, but our team is working on some of those visions right now for AI adoption for us.
Speaker 1:Andy, let me ask you one final question as we begin to wrap up. We've already talked about some of the uniqueness about Alliant International University how it came together, how it's the product of a series of mergers over time, so it is somewhat unique. In higher education, I mean, those of us who come from the publics, you know, see things very black and white. But there is a lot of room for different variations to serve populations of learners throughout the country and serve them effectively and efficiently. And your model is also somewhat unique in terms of how it's governed, some of the ownership structures. Can you describe the governance structure for Alliant International University?
Speaker 2:Sure, we have two boards. We have a governing board called the Board of Trustees, and that is an independent board that actually governs the university, our academics, our finances, the operation itself, all the outcomes of the university, and it's a 10-member board of trustees that's independent from any organization and it's self-perpetuating. The other board is the board of directors, and we have an investor. They are known as Bertelsmann, one of the largest companies in Europe, if not the world, and Bertelsmann also owns Athea, which is our sister schools in South America. They're the largest provider of licensed medical doctors and other healthcare industries in South America. They're based in Rio, and then we have a sister company called Relias in North Carolina. They're based in Rio, and then we have a sister company called Relias in North Carolina. They're the largest, or if not one of the largest, healthcare compliance training companies. And then, up until recently, udacity was a sister company of ours too. They were just divested recently, but Udacity was a part of our education group as well. So that's our education group, by the way, our sister company, our biggest ones in the US, Penguin Random House Publishing, and then a company called Fremantle in Los Angeles and in Hollywood, bmg Records, where the B stands for Bertelsmann is a fun company that we do work with as well. So for us, the Bertelsmann board is a much smaller board. It's three people, but that's our finance board. That's our smaller board. It's three people, but that's our finance board, that's our investment board. When Alliant seeks to open a new campus or new programs or to invest in infrastructure, like a new SIS, which is not inexpensive, as you know, the Bertelsmann board is the one that approves those kinds of capital expenditures, investments, and typically it's an equity investment versus a debt investment for us, which is wonderful for the university because it doesn't encumber us with debt typically, and that's a nice partnership to have.
Speaker 2:Bertelsmann is a great partner. They're a long-term, visionary partner. They're not into buy and sell, they're really into buy and hold and grow. They have a lot of patience. We just invested 5 or 10 million in a new nursing program in Phoenix and so, as you know, million in a new nursing program in Phoenix, and so, as you know, the expense in opening programs like that, just for the capital expense on labs and facilities, you don't see a return on an investment like that for a number of years. It usually takes four, five years to break even on that. They're fine with that. They have a lot of patience and they're doing it for the right reasons. They want to help solve shortages in key areas, and that would be mental health, k-12 education and health sciences, and that's what we're all about. They're a great partner for us for that reason.
Speaker 1:Well, and those are three critical areas for the state of California and for the country. So, Andy, I really appreciate you taking the time to sit down with me and have this conversation about the work that you're leading at Alliant International University and really help our listeners better understand the work that you do and the importance of organizations like Alliant, who are providing some of our most critical health care providers mental health providers.
Speaker 2:So thanks for coming on the rant Eloy, always a pleasure to see and talk to you. Thank you so much for the invite.
Speaker 1:Great Well, thanks everybody for joining us here. I've been having the pleasure of sitting down with Andy Vaughn, the president and CEO of Alliant International University, and I want to take a moment to thank Alliant. They are a sponsor of the Rant podcast, and without their support, we wouldn't be able to bring you the kinds of interviews and in-depth conversations that we're having, like the one here with Andy. If you enjoyed this episode, please hit the like button, continue to follow us on your favorite podcast platform, hit subscribe to this YouTube channel and we will be back to you shortly with another great episode. Thanks for joining us everybody.
