Apprenticeships, the Future of Online Education, and Relationships
Roughly seven years ago, a group of us at Entangled Ventures began focusing on how rural colleges might transform given the economic and demographic realities impacting them and the needs of their local populations. I admit: we were pretty stumped. Outside of online institutions, it wasn’t obvious to us how to build sustainable higher education colleges that could serve the talent pipeline needs of rural communities.
The best answer to that challenge that I’ve seen is Reach University—a new, accredited higher education institution that focuses on educating teachers for rural school districts by combining apprenticeships with online education.
The problem Reach is solving isn’t a small one. Nearly one in five students in the country attend a rural school. And on any given day, about a million of those students will go to school in classrooms that lack a permanent teacher.
This is also a problem that has long obsessed the chancellor of Reach University, Mallory Dwinal-Palisch. I’ve known Mallory since she was a student at the Harvard Business School and authored a white paper for us at the Christensen Institute titled “Solving the nation’s teacher shortage: How online learning can fix the broken teacher labor market.”
She joined me and Jeff Selingo on the latest episode of Future U. to talk about Reach University’s model, how they leverage an apprenticeship approach with teacher education to create an offering that works for the rural labor market, the importance of learning-by-doing, and the value of solving one problem and doing it really well. The conversation delved into several different questions, so we decided to split the podcast into two parts. Check out “Leveraging Apprenticeships to Bolster the Rural Talent Pipeline: Part 1” here, which was sponsored by the Ascendium Education Group. And stay tuned for part 2, which will be released next week, and tackles the questions of quality, scale, and what other rural talent pipeline challenges the Reach University approach can address.
Future of Online Education
Illustration from ChatGPT and DALL-E
If Reach University speaks to one way that online education is evolving, our guests— Fernando Bleichmar, CEO of Academic Partnerships, and Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO of Coursera—on another episode of Future U., “Future of Online Ed,” spoke to other aspects.
Academic Partnerships made news this week with its acquisition of Wiley’s online program management business for somewhere between $110 and $150 million, but it was Academic Partnerships’ release of a new report showing a strong ROI for graduates of online college programs that Academic Partnerships supports that had me and Jeff so excited.
The survey found that recent graduates of Academic Partnerships-supported programs averaged double-digit salary increases and a short tuition payback period of 1.2 years. One way they made the payback period so short? By charging a low amount for tuition—$16,600 on average for a full degree program! And because Academic Partnerships supports learners in programs like nursing, teaching, and business where there is high demand and a clear market to pay graduates, the ROI is pretty secure for those who graduate.
The conversation then moved to talk about what a focus on low-price degrees might mean, the role of degrees and credentials, and, as Jeff from Coursera observed, the value that comes from being a modular player able to customize higher education offerings for affordable prices in contrast to a traditional, fully vertically integrated university. I suspect you’ll find the conversation as fascinating as I did. You can check it out here, at Future of Online Ed.
The Disruptive Voice: Western Governors University
As we think about the fast-changing nature of online education, one of the pioneers in that field has been Western Governors University (WGU). It’s also one of the clearest examples of disruptive innovation in the field of education, with its low-cost degrees that have improved over time as it has scaled and served nonconsumers of higher education.
I guest hosted an episode of the Disruptive Voice podcast (which is produced by the Harvard Business School and is a podcast that my wife started when she worked for Clay Christensen’s research group at the school!) in which I interviewed the president of WGU, Scott Pulsipher. Scott shared how the theories of disruptive innovation helped WGU both start and grow into an institution that now boasts an alumni base of roughly 340,000 graduates. I was struck by so many parts of this conversation, but in particular how WGU has continued to seek ways to disrupt itself by launching new offerings for those even it wasn’t serving well and how stellar its outcomes continue to be. Check out the episode here.
Relationships, Relationships, Relationships
Finally, another crucial aspect of education is relationships. Ana Homayoun, author of the new book Erasing the Finish Line: The New Blueprint for Success Beyond Grades and College Admissions, joined me and Jeff on Future U. to talk about her findings and the ingredients for student success. Those ranged from deliberately ensuring that students have supporters and clarifiers in their lives to the importance of having multiple circles of non-overlapping connections and executive function skills—as well as of redefining success in a way that is positive sum, not zero sum. As higher education continues to evolve, relationships will be central. We offered ideas of how colleges can help students in our episode “How Colleges Can Cultivate Relationships to Improve the Student Experience Ana Homayoun.”
As always, thanks for reading, writing, and listening.