Higher education is hailed as the pathway to career success and social mobility. However, it often poses barriers for adult learners and students from historically marginalized communities, such as high tuition costs and inflexible course schedules. Fortunately, institutions like California’s Calbright College are actively working to remove these barriers through initiatives such as free in-state tuition, a fully online, asynchronous format, a strong emphasis on career readiness, and flexible support from staff and faculty. In this 5 Questions interview, Marisa Bold, Vice President of Sustainable Growth and District Development, discusses more about her work and Calbright College’s unique approach to supporting students.
What should people know about Calbright College?
Calbright College is a new kind of community college designed to support the needs and goals of adult learners. We were established in 2018 to be a statewide, online, and flexible California Community College that offers accessible and career-focused programs—based on in-demand skills from IT to CRM Platform Administration to Data Analysis. Calbright’s free and flexibly paced model, which utilizes competency-based education, works within the schedules of California’s working-age adults to provide the rigor of higher education without the logistical hurdles of a traditional institution.
We were also designed to be a research and development engine for the California Community Colleges system and the higher education sector as a whole. Our focus remains on driving adult learner success, given that the majority of our student body is above the age of 25. We achieve this through mission-aligned partnerships – one of them being with Axim Collaborative and The Learning Agency focusing on learning engineering and the Tools Competition.
Why is the work you're doing there important?
Equity and outcomes are the heart of our work. We believe one of the biggest ways to have impact is by weaving equity into how we design, who is included in that process, and how we measure whether it’s working. This means we center the needs and voices of our students throughout the process and focus not just on equitable access and supports but on equitable outcomes.
We believe one of the biggest ways to have impact is by weaving equity into how we design, who is included in that process, and how we measure whether it’s working.
There are more than 6.8 million adults in California without a degree, and more than 40 million adults with some credits and no degree nationwide. This is a huge population of learners who may have different needs than higher education has oriented around in the past.
At Calbright our students represent these learners across California.
- 90% of our learners are over the age of 25.
- More than 70% of our students self-identify as BIPOC.
- Our students represent 52 of CA’s 58 counties and 34 out of CA’s 40 rural counties.
Adult learners bring so much experience, so many skills, and have a clear sense of their goals – especially the workforce outcomes they seek. So, we prioritize helping them achieve those outcomes, focusing on innovations that remove barriers and help accelerate learner progress, increase completion rates, decrease the time to completion, and enable students to work towards the career outcomes they seek.
What's been the biggest surprise for you so far in your work?
I don’t know if it’s surprising, but I have been so excited to see the way in which people across the college have embraced innovation and rapid design and prototyping. Approaching the work in a new way can be scary, but I continue to be impressed by the team’s willingness to adapt and try something new when the focus is on students, outcomes, and our shared goals. Through the support and dedication of our whole team here at Calbright, rapid, iterative, student-centered design has really become a model for how we work and we’ve seen it have a significant impact for students and our institution.
How do you see the landscape shifting over the next five years?
As we look ahead, we are focused on building educational opportunities that advance equity and outcomes for all students, particularly those who historically have not been well served. For us this means adapting institutions to work for all students and measuring success in terms of student-centered outcomes such as persistence, retention, completion, and workforce outcomes. We are at a pivotal moment in education technology. We believe AI advancements have the potential to be a transformational lever in the higher education landscape, but that it’s essential to center student needs and voices in tool development and prioritize building tools that truly support student outcomes.
We believe AI advancements have the potential to be a transformational lever in the higher education landscape, but that it’s essential to center student needs and voices in tool development and prioritize building tools that truly support student outcomes.
What else should people know?
At Calbright, we’ve seen early efficacy in moving the needle with regard to adult learner success but I want to emphasize that nothing we do is proprietary. While parts of the Calbright model may be unique, the population of adult learners is growing nationwide and online education is becoming more prevalent. We are so excited about the ways in which this work resonates and translates to other contexts and we’re always looking to learn from, work with, and share with others. At the end of the day our anchor is advancing equity and outcomes for our students and students like them nationwide and so we are always open to sharing, and learning, and hearing from others who are in the work.
