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
From Classroom Hours To Competencies: How WGU And Calbright Build Value For Working Learners
Skills without progress are just potential. We sat down with WGU Provost Courtney Hills McBeth and Calbright College President and CEO Ajita Talwalker Menon to break down how competency-based education turns learning into jobs, promotions, and lasting economic value for working adults. No hype—just practical models that measure what you can do, not how long you sat in class.
We dig into two complementary approaches: WGU’s course-based CBE that maps to the credit hour, and Calbright’s direct assessment for short-term, skills-forward credentials. Both start from the same promise: meet learners where they are, honor prior knowledge, and personalize the path using AI, data dashboards, and one-to-one mentorship. You’ll hear how faculty roles are redesigned around proactive support, how pacing flexes with life and work, and how durable skills like problem solving and communication anchor technical training to outlast industry shifts.
Economic mobility runs through every choice. WGU won’t launch programs without strong regional job demand and tracks factored graduate return to keep tuition low and value high. Calbright broadens the definition of outcomes to include wage gains, career pivots, benefits, and flexibility—because security is more than a paycheck. We also spotlight embedded work-based learning at scale: simulations, micro-internships, clinicals, and teacher apprenticeships at WGU, plus Calbright’s Career Bridge projects with partners like Riipen and HubSpot that produce real portfolio artifacts and references.
Accreditation is changing, too. Our guests outline why quality assurance must recognize multiple pathways to outcomes, support speed to market for workforce-aligned programs, and evaluate direct assessment with clear standards. Finally, we talk partnerships—WGU and Calbright are building seamless pathways from short-term credentials to degrees, while employers and rural communities signal where talent is needed most.
If you care about adult learners, ROI, and making education count at work, this conversation is your playbook. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review to help more people find the show.
WGU.edu
Calbright.edu
eloy@4leggedmedia.com
Hi, this is Eloy Ortiz Oakley and welcome back to the Rand Podcast. 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 two great guests and talk about competency-based education, CBE. I get to sit down with Courtney Hills Macbeth, who is the Chief Academic Officer and Provost at Western Governors University. Many of you know Western Governors University or WGU. They are the pioneer of CBE at scale throughout the country, serving now more than a hundred and ninety thousand learners throughout the country. And joining us as well is the president and CEO of Calbright College, Ajita Talwalker Menon. Ajita has been leading Calbright College for a number of years now, and it is one of the newest California community colleges designed and built on a CBE model focused on skill acquisition for working learners in California. They are now serving more than 7,000 working learners here in California and continuing to figure out how to scale. So it's great to have them both. We get to talk about both ends of the spectrum. A highly scaled, nearly 30-year-old WGU who is the pioneer of CBE, and one of the newest colleges offering CBE in Calbright College. We'll talk about how each model is different, how they're evolving to meet the needs of their learners, and the importance of CBE as we move forward. We'll also touch on accreditation. With all the changes in accreditation happening, how do models like the WGUs and the Calbrights of the world that are doing great work for working learners? How do we accredit them? How they how do we actually support them and help institutions like that grow and serve more learners and give them better opportunities? We'll also touch on work-based learning and how each institution is thinking about creating greater economic value for their learner by ensuring that the curriculum has at its center opportunities for work-based learning so that learners can connect their learning to the economic outcome that they're trying to accomplish. This is a critical conversation today. With everything going on in the country, everything going on in colleges, universities, throughout this country, learners want and expect to understand how their resources, how their investment is going to connect them to the outcome that they're looking for. And in many cases, that's an economic outcome, a job, a career. How is their learning connected to that? How do they translate or articulate their learning to an employer so that the employer understands what kind of skills are behind that learning, what kind of skills they've acquired, and help them get that opportunity to get that first job or that second job. And in the case of WGU and CalBright, it could be the third and fourth job. These opportunities for continuous skill acquisition are what's going to set successful institutions apart going forward. And both WGU and Calbright are excellent models for higher education leaders throughout the country to look at. Not that the C BE model is perfect for everyone, but CBE and having a diversity of ways that we provide and support diverse learners is key to our future and to the American workforce as we move forward. So given all that backdrop and the continued chaos throughout the country, the continued uncertainty that we face in the higher education marketplace, we will dive into those. We'll continue to dive into creating economic value. As we've touched on in previous episodes, this is a very nascent area where we're still continuing to learn how we're going to uh measure value for short-term credentials, how we're going to think about measuring value throughout regions and big states like California, from rural to urban communities. How do we actually create the data infrastructure to ensure that we're giving learners clear and accurate information about what they should expect from their program of study, what that return on investment will be, and are these credentials actually valued in the marketplace? All that still needs to play out, but you know what? It's a great thing that we're having this conversation because it means that the higher education marketplace is at a point where it's continuing to evolve, continuing to improve, and continuing to recapture the faith and the confidence of the public. So with that backdrop, please enjoy my conversation with Courtney and Ajita as we dive into compassy-based education models at WGU and CalBrite. Courtney and Ajita, welcome to the Ramp Podcast.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you. Great to be here, Eloy. Thanks for having us.
SPEAKER_00:It's great to have you both. Thank you both for taking the time out of your busy schedules to join us here on the Ramp Podcast. Ajita, I know you've joined us before, so thanks for coming back. Courtney, I know this is your first time, but I think we had another guest from WGU, Scott Pulsifer, or some name like that. I love him.
SPEAKER_01:Sounds vaguely familiar, yes. We love our president.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, he's a good guy indeed. All right. So I know there's a lot going on in both of your worlds, so let's jump right into this. You both come from institutions that are competency-based education institutions. You all over there at WGU are the pioneers in many respects. So why don't we start with you, Courtney? Let's just start by asking you, given all the things that are going on in the world today in Washington, D.C., all the talk in the higher education marketplace, what excites you about 2026 over there at WGU?
SPEAKER_01:There's one thing at the heart of WGU, which is our students and changing their lives for the better. So despite all that's going on in the world around us, education is that pathway to opportunity. And so we remain just solely focused on that and helping individuals improve their lives and for their family and for their community. One thing that I've been thinking a lot about, Eloy, as we come to almost our 30-year anniversary at WGU, which is this fact that we have to re-embrace our entrepreneurial roots. When WGU started, we are scrappy and we changed the dynamic and the landscape of higher ed. And we will continue to do that as we think about how to be extremely nimble and tech enabled and very student-centered. That's what really excites me is there's so much going on in technology as well, that if we can be nimble and re-embrace our entrepreneurial roots and use technology to deeply personalize learning to meet students no matter their starting point. Lots to be excited about in 2026.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. And congrats on the 30-year anniversary. It's hard to believe. I guess this means you're not the new kid on the block anymore.
SPEAKER_01:That's right.
SPEAKER_02:You've probably heard we actually have a lot to be excited about as we're moving into 2026. We recently received the incredible news that Governor Newsom has proposed a significant investment that is about securing Calbright's future in the higher education and workforce development landscape here in California. So that's it's big. It's more than just a line item for the college or the state. To me, it's really this powerful recognition of this urgent need that we have in the state to support adult learners and to build more inclusive, future-ready workforce for our local communities, to drive our regional economies and to support the needs of employers statewide. Over the past few years, we've been working really hard to remind folks how critical it is for us to look at what people are actually experiencing in the job market and why they're seeking educational opportunities. So as when we look at where we are today, nearly 7,000 learners, 2,000 certificates granted, 91% of our learners over the age of 25 and in kind of 57 out of 58 counties here in California, we are very excited about the opportunity we have in front of us. And I love what Courtney said, largely because I think we view it fundamentally the same way, which is the validation around what we've built and the value it carries for our learners is not just something that's on paper. It's it is something that we hear directly from our learners. In our last student experience survey, 87% of respondents said they would recommend Calbright to a friend. And behind that recognition are real people, right? They're just these incredible stories of learners who are managing challenges and complexity in their lives and making it really hard for them to access the traditional educational program. And that's what we're most excited about, to really be able to reach and impact more learners who need us.
SPEAKER_00:That's great news, and I'm glad to see that Governor Newsom has once again decided to invest in the future of California by investing in CalBrights. Congratulations. Courtney, let's jump back to you. So company-based education, CBE, seems to be being talked about a lot today in the education marketplace. In Washington, D.C., they're talking about new models that serve working learners' models that truly translate into economic value for the learner. There's a lot of talk about transparency, talk about creating economic mobility. Given all of that, and given now that you're 30 years old, how are you thinking about innovating and continuing to evolve your teaching and learning model there at WGU?
SPEAKER_01:So as you noted, 30 years ago, Governor Levitt and Governor Rohmer, two Western governors, had a vision around making sure education wasn't time-based. At the core, it's about having the ability to deliver a flexible education that is not time-based, but that's competency-based. And so at the core foundation of WGU and will continue to be, Eloy, is this notion that we want to meet a student where they are. Whether they're brand new to accounting or maybe they've worked in a bank for 20 years, that we meet them where they are. And as soon as they're able to demonstrate the mastery of competencies and pass the rigorous assessment, then they're able to advance in the coursework. It goes back to Ajee to what you were saying here, which is it's about the flexibility and the personalization of that experience that a student can study anytime or anywhere, right? We've unwe've unconstrained the geographic boundaries where historically students go to school within 50 miles of where they live. With WGU's competency-based model, they can study wherever and whenever and align it to their career and be able to progress through the coursework as fast as they want. Now, Eloy, what's really exciting right now with additional technologies that are coming on board is this ability to use AI. AI is very good at taking large data sets and being able to predict how someone might do, and to also personalize a learning experience, how information is presented and in what context. So this notion that there's a performative assessment, which is writing, or an objective assessment with which might be multiple choice or otherwise, AI will allow us to continue to actually do much more holistic and personal assessment of students and to further the CBE models. A lot of things to be excited about, but we are firmly still grounded in the competency-based education.
SPEAKER_00:Great. Now, Ajita, when you and I first sat down and started thinking about designing a new college for California, one that's fully online, focused on skill acquisition. You and the team looked at WGU as a model. And clearly there's continues to be alignment between CalBright and WGU. How are you thinking about evolving the teaching and learning model within the context of how Calbright serves its learners? And in what ways do you feel like your path has gone in a little bit different direction than a WGU?
SPEAKER_02:It's a great question. I've been a fan of WGUs for a long time since my time in DC. And what's been powerful about what WGU has accomplished is that they've really created the standard. They're the standard bearer for course-based CBE. And that's especially true in baccalaureate and master's degree programs. And they've done it in ways that can map to the credit hour and in a way that bridges into the structure of our existing federal financial aid model. So that's been critical. And it's been critical to scaling the models to help reach more learners and to help learners show what they can do with the degrees that they earn, which has been a pretty significant disconnect, we know, in the degree marketplace. And where we're headed with CalBright is in many ways really complementary. Our starting point is in the shorter-term credential space. And for that, we think it's better suited for direct assessment competency-based education, which is what we've been building towards. So for our learners who are seeking short-term credentials, sometimes it's to reskill or to upskill, it's really important to have pathways that are able to decouple from the credit hour. So this kind of an approach really indexes more on the direct validation of skills so that students can advance with a flexible pace that fits everything that they're juggling in their lives. And then where what they already know is acknowledged in their progress and every second of time spent in learning is about mastering new and career-relevant skills. To be clear, I think what we're talking about with WG is important. Both models are really important. And what becomes exciting is the way we grow that CBE movement all overall. So different institutions are going to adapt CBE to their unique learner needs and context. That's a really good thing. We need them to do that. And lastly, I'll say it's really important that we stop thinking about CBE as just a curricular model. Most of what the potential is that exists in this model is a way that lets us redesign what learners actually experience. And both of our institutions, I know, think a lot about how we integrate support into that journey that learners have with us. So, like at Calbright, we believe, and I think this is Courtney, I think this is true of WGU as well, that support can't be decoupled from academic success. What I loved about what Courtney said about the power we now have and the tools we now have as institutions to leverage data and technology to give us that 360 view of the learner and to really hone in on what they need to reach their goals. That includes learning and support experiences that are going to help get them there. So we are really thinking more and more about how we looked at a wholly redesigned approach to CBE. And I know that is where WGU's heart is and where a lot of the work has been over the past few years in particular.
SPEAKER_01:I love how you just pointed out that it is about the course and the program offerings. And just as much or more is how we focus and design the faculty roles. And so at WGU is we have a one-on-one relationship where a mentor is meeting with a student every week. And there's ways in which we're even creating dashboards for our mentors to have a much more holistic view of leading indicators on how a student's doing. So that as a mentor comes into a conversation, they've got a snapshot to say, Agita's really strong here, but actually she hasn't engaged or she has an outstanding balance on her account. And even with our mentors, the tech enablement and the visualization, the dashboards, the leading indicators really can help our human support be much more personalized. Now, Eloy, I think both Calbright and WGU are very aligned around a dimension that we didn't quite touch on yet, which is the workforce relevancy.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_01:So the CBE model at the core is this notion that we know and understand what's happening in the workplace and that we can design our curriculum to be based on skills and competencies aligned with the workplace. And we're in this moment where the workforce is dramatically changing and at a faster rate than we've seen before. And those are other dimensions of our models where we have to continue, whether it's short-term certificates or bachelor's or master's, be designing in a way that accommodates a rapidly changing workplace and also offers and teaches those durable skills that we know can't be AI'd out of problem solving, critical thinking, teamwork, collaboration, leadership, et cetera. I I think CBE has been such a great lever for a lot of institutions to actually innovate around that is not solely within the course, but the model holistically.
SPEAKER_00:And you touched on go go ahead, Ajita.
SPEAKER_02:Oh no, I just I love the highlight on durable skills. I think we we look at it very similarly, really needing to index hard on those skills because even if we get perfect alignment with technical skills that are needed in the labor market, it's going to be exceedingly difficult for higher ed institutions to get ahead of that, even ones like WGU or Calbright, who have eyes and direct focus on that. And so giving students and equipping them with the skills that actually transcend any singular job role, that is about speaking to the flexibility and adaptability of our students themselves, what we're preparing them for, which is often beyond just the job or the career opportunity. It's to navigate all of those disruptions that we're going to continue to see in what happens in the labor market. And so I appreciate that Courtney raised that and also wanted to double down on that. That's a big driver of not just what's going to create economic value for the learner, but what's going to make them prepare to navigate the changes ahead.
SPEAKER_00:So let me double down on that last comment, Ajita. Economic value for the learner. Economic value for the learner is something that it seems that the entire education marketplace is driving toward, whether by choice or because of federal accountability standards now in place, or because the availability of data to actually show economic value in in ways that we weren't able to see before. Here in California, we highlighted the kind of economic value that community colleges and FOIA universities are creating for learners. Given this drive, Courtney, let me turn to you, how does WGU begin to articulate the kind of economic value it's creating for learners and for employers? Has that caused you to think differently about how you communicate uh success, or is that something that was already happening?
SPEAKER_01:So at WGU, one of our three key results. The first one is completion, but return is one of our three key results. So this notion of what is the return and the value for the student is our core focus. And so, Eloy, before we even launch a program, we are looking at all the earnings data nationally by regions, and we're looking at how many jobs are open or not. And so we don't, we don't develop and launch a program unless it has economic value. And so it's at the core operating function of we have about a hundred academic programs. Many of our peers have 250 plus academic programs. So we've been very strategic and very focused around the economic value and the return for students, which I think has been very helpful for us as we've grown enrollment, but more so as we deliver that value for students. Now, with the new Carnegie classifications of opportunity colleges and universities, WG were very proud that we were one of a few institutions who have high access and high earnings. Only about 16% of the market had that. And so I think that very outcome, our ranking there speaks to our commitment to thinking about what is the economic return for our students. We, in the nation, we help educate the most teachers in a year, the most nurses in a year, cybersecurity and finance and accounting. These are important economic drivers for many states. And it's one reason why I've so much appreciated the state of California and Governor Newsom's focus on okay, in the state of California, here's our workforce shortages. How can we do everything possible to support institutions like Calbright and others to innovate and be able to fill these workforce shortages because that's our mission? And as opposed to some other institutions have additional mission of research and knowledge creation, et cetera, at WGU, we're willing to flex and do anything possible to launch scaled programs that are high quality, low cost, and that can fill those critical workforce shortages. And I think we're really proud, especially in rural areas across the country, to have done this where there aren't higher ed institutions available. And so we're proud of that rural role that we played as well. We do have this metric that we track that's called factored graduate return. And it's our really complicated way where we basically track the average earnings, it's a longitudinal earnings projection from the time of graduation to retirement, what that is divided by the cost of a WGU program. So this factors in an ROI calculation where that holds our, it's not only about what programs will offer that economic mobility to someone, but it's also we're holding ourselves accountable as an institution to keep our tuition costs as low as possible so that we maximize that return for a student.
SPEAKER_00:Creating uh high value and high access is definitely going to be a key to success going forward. So I hope that higher education leaders across the country are paying attention to this narrative. Vegeta, how does Calbright enter into that formula, particularly given that you're already a public institution in California, where California has probably the most affordable tuition in the country? How do you create value for your learners?
SPEAKER_02:It's a great question. First of all, I will say I love what WG is doing on the return on investment pieces. I think that's an essential understanding that learners themselves need when they're assessing educational opportunities for themselves and to know that they can reach and gain a credential that has real value in the labor market, but also will be attained in a really affordable way, I think is just tremendous. When we're talking about measuring value, we've seen positive wage gains for students who have gone through CalB programs, but we also know that there's a growing volatility in the labor market. So those traditional measures are not likely to be enough. So I think we're looking at it as we look at all things, which is from the perspective of the learner. You talked about the accountability and what policymakers are concerned and preoccupied with in terms of measuring value. These are all important things and considerations and questions. At the same time, when we just drill down to this very basic level of are people feeling like their higher education institutions are driving the value that they need to see to make that attempt and to, in some cases, take on that educational debt, then it becomes really important to really anchor into what's valuable to students, what they're seeking from their education. So when you ask CalBart students that, we know that and have learned that it's more than a wage premium. So for some, it has been the value to have that flexibility and balance between work and life. For a lot of folks, it's been career pivots. We've seen actually an increasing percentage of our student body reflect a lot of what we're seeing in the labor market, which is folks who may have even had a degree at one point in time, but that was 25 years ago, and they no longer have the skills to be relevant in today's workforce. They need a pivot and a and an upskilling opportunity. For others, that success has been about moving from shift work to full-time work or work with benefits. So we're starting to collect this kind of data to really uh reflect and contextualize what is happening to learners after they leave our institutions in the labor market and how we can stay true to the value that they're seeking when they come to us. And wage gains are absolutely important. Economic security is absolutely important. Our learners tell us that is important. And as institutions, we also have to be really anchoring what we do to continuously demonstrating value to the learners themselves. And I'll just say one small way we do that is also in modifying our programs. We talked a lot about the CBE model. We talked about integrated supports, both something that is a staple at WGU, something that is a staple at Calbright. We've also started recognizing that credentials are increasingly insufficient, even when they're skills-based credentials, right? Even when the whole point of the credential is about demonstrating what a learner can do in the world around them, really addressing what is often a gap in the hiring market, which is work experience. We have to start integrating more of those opportunities for students to access critical work-based learning. So we have an incredible partnership with a great organization, Ripen, which runs a very comprehensive work-based learning platform. And part of what we're creating a blueprint for is scaling project-based micro internships through our career bridge program. Because it's no longer just important for students to have in-field experience in the high growth fields, like Courtney and I have both talked about cybersecurity, data analytics, some of these opportunities. That evidence of real world experience often is in job roles that may not be as obvious. So we had a good example. We have this partnership with HubSpot, and they are leading in the AI space around a lot of the marketing technologies that are AI driven. And so we have our data analytics students that had the opportunity to do micro-internships with HubSpot to really explore the types of tools that are used in industry and that are changing and evolving. That experience, that experience and that actual concrete artifact on their resume of an experience like that becomes a tremendous part of rounding out the value of what happens in our institution in terms of the way that we structure teaching and learning, but also walking away with not just a credential but real world experience.
SPEAKER_00:And Courtney, I know WGU has invested quite a bit in providing that workforce workplace learning experience. Tell us about how you're delivering value by creating those opportunities.
SPEAKER_01:I actually just did an audit of this for our mid-year review, and over 80% of WGU courses involve some element of embedded experiential learning. So that's through simulation, microinternships, clinicals, et cetera. And this is this is one of the marvels of online institutions, is when it comes to work-based learning, again, the constraint of geography is lifted.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_01:And the constraint of work-based learning is doing it at scale and in a way that can be affordable. And so this is one of the main focus areas of WGU in the realm of increasing value to students, which is launching and developing scaled work-based learning across multiple domains and disciplines. And we've also launched teacher apprenticeships, which we now have over 2,500 students who are doing different forms of teacher apprenticeship degrees. And we're in the process of developing others. And in the spirit of new models and new modalities and ways to deliver value to students, this is a great one that all of us need to be pursuing because it is where employers are hiring for experience. The data show that.
SPEAKER_00:I think that's certainly a central theme. In all the changes that are happening across the country, every institution, public, private, all need to be thinking about how to incorporate workplace learning into their curriculum.
SPEAKER_02:Now, can I just say I just want to pause for a second because this is not an easy thing to do? And I do think it's important that we acknowledge that. A lot of other institutions talk about doing this, but they don't actually build the transformations in the workforce like WGU has, like we have at Calbright. The faculty mindset, I think at both institutions, or I'll at least speak to the one at Calbright, is remarkable. Our faculty are at the center of really embedding these experiences in ways that are reliable and consistent for the student experience. They not only see the value in these things, they are leading the edge and leading colleagues in the community college system overall in this work, particularly when we're talking about the forward-leaning moment we have to leverage uh AI as a tool to enhance what faculty and what instructors do, what frontline student support specialists and counselors do. And I would say in a place like California, to have faculty leaders in this way out front has been tremendous, and I think is going to be a really important part of our evolution in terms of what public institutions see the potential and the opportunity to do.
SPEAKER_00:Agreed. Now, speaking about thriving as institutions, accreditation is a big part of thriving as an institution, and there's a lot of discussion in DC right now about upending, changing, evolving, revolutionizing the accreditation process. Accreditors have been under a lot of scrutiny over the last several years, whether in this administration or the previous administration. And I know both of your institutions have had to sometimes twist yourself into pretzels to achieve accreditation. WGU has had to map its CBE courses back to a credit hour in order to allow it to be accredited. And I know Calbright struggled for a period of time trying to find an accreditor that would actually take a look at it and see how it's serving uh learners. Courtney, let's start with you. Given all this discussion, what would be your advice to policymakers in DC? What should be done with accreditation going forward?
SPEAKER_01:I would say I think there's two promising trends. One is we can now shop for accreditors. So the power dynamic has shifted, and that's really helpful as an institution. The second is we're in a contracting market in higher ed. There's mergers, closures, acquisitions. So there's less clients, if you will. And so these are two actually really helpful dynamics where as one of the large or the largest nonprofit institution in the country, we need to be able to be nimble and innovate and move forward. And for example, on some of the work-based learning and work-based degrees, we need an accreditor who's innovative, who can move forward with us, and who can honor some of these core dimensions, competency, but also our speed to market on our degrees and programs, we're accelerating that so that we can redevelop programs and develop to stay workforce aligned. We need an accreditor who can keep up with us, if you will. Right. Because if I wait two years to launch a new cyber program, it's going to be out of date. The innovation, the nimbleness, and the willingness to move forward with institutions who have this student at the center. That's what we need as an industry. And I think we've seen some accreditors who are moving in this direction. We also have new players in the space who are looking at economic outcomes as major factors. And I think we're moving forward and we just need to continue to have a glide path to be workforce aligned and highly student-centered so that we can create the economic mobility and outcomes our students deserve.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. I think that idea of needing to be able to find fit with a creditor is critically important because if we're taking a step back and we're asking, what are what is what are accreditors here to do? In large part, it is around that quality assurance. And I point that out because we are now, as Courtney pointed out, entering a moment where it's going to be essential to support new models that meet new students' needs. And what we find is the processes around accreditation are a little bit stuck in in many ways because it is a peer group that comes in and evaluates the institution. When we're looking at that peer group, they're going to look at it from their experience, from the way their institutions worked or didn't work. And understanding that standards are very important, we have to give the flexibility to understand there's lots of different ways to meet those standards. Understanding that quality assurance in a model like ours, where there is a precision to the inputs and the way that we develop programs and the way that actually we not just map to innovation, but map to continuous improvement. Those are all really concrete demonstrations of quality that traditional accreditation standards don't recognize. And I will just say we have an incredible accreditor in DEAC. And what is most notable about that accreditor is that they have worked really hard over the years to understand that there's a great range of types of institutions and that uh the mission and the responsibilities of institutions is going to vary and their models are going to vary. And as a result, how they are evaluated needs to also be mindful of that. So I think there's a lot of good things about the questioning of the traditional role of accreditors. I also think it is it is challenging in an environment where we just turn it on its head, but don't give it a lot of guidance in terms of the way that standards can evolve or should evolve. And I haven't seen as much discussion into that, in that space as I have to the particular role that accreditors have played vis-a-vis gatekeeping into Title IV. I think Courtney started to allude to new accreditors out there, new entities and bodies that are looking at quality assurance and that are not just instructive but supportive of new and innovative models, whether it's tracking and focusing on the educational outcomes and the economic outcomes to organizations like the competency-based education network, which is a national board that I recently joined, who is really thinking about how do we actually begin to evaluate the diversity of the models that exist in competency-based education. How do we actually set the set of standards about what it means to have a high quality CBE program? And all of these places and roles that accreditation accreditors have traditionally held, and many of the accreditors who still have further to go in this realm, I hope we can actually have the right conversations around what it means to evaluate institutions for quality in this moment as models are evolving without throwing the baby out with the bathwater or regressing to a place in which we have one idea of what standards should be across the country. And it doesn't reflect models that are adapting to meet the needs of different communities.
SPEAKER_00:So we'll see. We'll see how it all works out. Let me ask you one last question as we begin to wrap up, and I'll turn to you first, Sajita. Calbright, WGU, both of your institutions really focus on designing with the working learner in mind, with folks who don't have the opportunity to go to a time and place of the institution's choosing, but they go to a time and place of their choosing to access their learning. How is CalBright thinking about designing for the working learner going forward, particularly with the new tools that are being made available through AI and other types of technology?
SPEAKER_02:It's a great question. I think the tools that are available to us now really accelerate the pace in which we can innovate, the pace in which we can evaluate what's working, and the pace in which we can implement improvements or changes or evolve the model. And I think we're uniquely positioned as an institution here in California. And certainly amongst public institutions in California, because we've built very intentionally with this moment in mind. You know, on the technical side, it's a very cloud-based infrastructure and data underneath. But all that really means is it allows us to really look at how we leverage these tools within the context of the things that we're trying to accomplish for our learners. And part of what we've anchored on, because I know there's a lot of novelty out there as well as folks think about how they are going to adopt AI. And even that is a frightening idea for me. Just I'm going to go out and indiscriminately buy a bot here or a service here. We're in a moment where institutions really need to hold on to the core of what they are trying to deliver for their students and then understand how to integrate the technologies without losing their data, without losing sight of how they need to manage how the technology adoption occurs. And so we have very intentionally built it to keep the human in the loop. And what that means is similar to, I think, what Courtney was mentioning earlier around the idea that there are there's a dashboard. For us, there's a learner portal and there's a staff portal. And the staff portal is the place where faculty and frontline specialists can look in one place and leverage the tools as they get implemented to be able to optimize the human connection that they have with our learners in a way that is scalable and affordable. I really believe that if you do this in a disciplined way and in an eyes-open way while retaining the responsibilities you have as an institution, there's a lot of powerful ways we can really enhance the outcomes for learners in institutions like ours. The other piece that I will double down on is the space of partnership and collaboration. There is no way in which we should be laboring around all of this work just as higher in higher ed institutions and certainly not as individual institutions. I think I'm very excited about the partnership that we recently announced with WGU that is very much focused on how do you actually put together two institutions for more seamless pathways and opportunities for learners beyond the short-term credential at Calbright. And so having ways in which we can collaborate as an institution to drive new types of pathways that can accelerate learners' opportunities to get advanced credentialing and degrees through a wonderful partner like WGU becomes a really powerful way of redesigning pathways and expanding opportunity here in California. It's also not just about higher ed partners, it's also really looking in the workforce and economic development space at those folks who are values aligned to really want to create opportunities for working learners. And we, and through that, we have partnerships like the wonderful partnership we have with SCIU UHW around our community health worker, which is increasingly going to be a critical role up and down the state as we look at the way that our communities are affected by changes in healthcare law and the rising cost of healthcare and the giant gap that we see and experience in terms of the healthcare workforce. And the last thing I'll say about to that is I mentioned earlier, we're in 57 of 58 counties here in California. And what was significant to me as I learned more and more about other different regions of our states and the diversity of the communities in our state was really understanding four 40 of those counties are considered rural counties. And that's that was something else to understand that we always have talked about California as a microcosm of the rest of the country, but what it actually means for folks in a place where they lack access to a bricks and mortar institution, where the economic needs and the economic development goals need to be supported and indexed to, understanding how we work more with organizations like the rural counties organization who understand that models like this actually are key to unlocking economic opportunity in rural communities. Those are all the things that institutions like CalBright have to be prepared to do. And increasingly, over the past several years, we've been able to rise to the occasion. We look forward to doing more.
SPEAKER_00:Great. And I also look forward to hearing more about the WGU Calbright Partnership. So, Courtney, I'll give you the last word. How are you thinking about continuing to evolve how you design for the working learner?
SPEAKER_01:It's great to be on the podcast and to round us out. I actually want to point to this visual above my head, which might be hard to read, but the number that's on there is the number of degrees that WGU has awarded, and it updates every morning. So this morning it updated to 474,827. So tomorrow we'll be at 475,000 degrees awarded.
SPEAKER_03:All right.
SPEAKER_01:So what does this actually mean? And why do I say in relation to your question, Eloy? Is because it's really simple is that our working age adults, they need several things, which are they need flexibility, they need to be able to study whenever, wherever, and they need a personalized experience, they need a model that acknowledges all the skills and learning and experience they have as an accelerated starting point. They need to be able to go at their own pace. They need meaning they can pause if family stuff happens or they can accelerate on a weekend. They need a relevant working experience that as they learn, they can see direct relevancy. So it's that value that's continued. And they need low cost. In a lot of institutions, the cost imperative is that it's an imperative. And it's a they struggle to figure out how much it actually costs to develop and deliver because they've got all these other competing priorities. So at WGU, we know how much it costs to develop and deliver every single program. And it is about designing this holistic experience that's highly tech enabled and highly human supported. And in the state of California, for example, this is where the state of California gave us a grant to educate 200 teachers. And we've done that in very short order, and we're standing by ready to help figure out where else we can help fill in the gaps. The state of California, for example, has amazing systems. They've got several strong systems. Calbright coming on board, partnering with you. We also want to help fill in the gaps, for example, in rural areas, where Sutter Health System is telling us we want as many nurses as you can help us educate because we can't educate enough nurses. So for us in that case, we don't have the blockers of accreditors. We have the blockers of state institutions like the Board of Registered Nursing that will only give us so many spots. So we are highly designed for the working age adult. And sometimes in states we hit these barriers where we hope that we can partner. And in the case of California, Sutter Health has been an amazing partner. And we're partnering with other health systems to say, let us come in and fill in the gaps where the existing institutions can't. And it's just such a pleasure to be able to come on here with both of you and to talk about WGU, but more so where else we can help fill in and partner with great institutions in the state of California and fill the critical workforce shortages because the country, everyone looks to California. What happens in California is often the bellwether. And so let's keep California at the front and educating and providing these pathways to opportunity.
SPEAKER_00:On that note, I certainly agree that if we begin to place the learner at the center of states, of cities, of regions, of the country, we can deliver through partnerships, through the multitude of diverse organizations that are out there the learning that they need when they need it, and to help them, their families, and our economies continue to thrive. So thanks to both of you for taking the time to be with me here on the Ramp Podcast. I really appreciate the work that you're leading at Calbright and Western Governors University. So, Courtney and Najita, thank you for being with us.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00:All right. You've been listening to my conversation here on the Ramp Podcast with the provost of Western Governors University, Courtney Hills McMath, and the president and CEO of Calbright College, Jita Talwalker Menon. Thank you both for being with us. If you're watching us on YouTube, please hit subscribe. If you're following us on your favorite audio podcast platform, download this episode, continue to follow us, and as always, continue to point to the Rant Podcast for all of your higher education marketplace podcast needs. Thanks for joining us, everybody, and we'll see you all soon.
