The Perceived Quality Gap Is Closing: What Employers Really Think About Online Degrees

The Perceived Quality Gap Is Closing: What Employers Really Think About Online Degrees

by | Jul 23, 2026 | Working Learners

The Perceived Quality Gap Is Closing: What Employers Really Think About Online Degrees

For years, online education has had to overcome a perception challenge. Many assumed that if students had the option, they would always choose a traditional campus experience, and employers often viewed online credentials as somehow less rigorous or less valuable.

But higher education has changed dramatically. Today’s learners are increasingly working adults, parents, military-affiliated students, and career changers who need education that fits their lives, not the other way around. In fact, the traditional-age, residential student is no longer the majority of learners in higher education, and nearly one in three college students now take their courses exclusively online.

As online learning has become a mainstream pathway to education, employer perceptions appear to be evolving alongside that reality.

A new study from Ithaka S+R suggests that while some bias toward online credentials remains, employers are placing far greater emphasis on demonstrated skills, relevant work experience, and job readiness than on whether a degree was earned online or in person.

For institutions serving nontraditional students, that’s an encouraging and important shift.

Transcript

Wesley Smith (00:00.694)
Welcome to Just One Question with the Presidents Forum. I’m Wesley Smith, and today I’m joined by the Presidents Forum’s policy fellow, Amy Glyn. We’re going to explore just one question. Amy, there’s new research on employer perceptions of online credentials. What does it tell us about the future of higher education and the students that we serve?

Amy Glynn (00:26.933)
Yeah, Wes, thanks for having me again. You know, I think the biggest takeaway is that employers are becoming much more focused on outcomes and capabilities than educational modality. Right. And this is a really tremendous win for those of us who are familiar with the high quality and rigorous standards of more.

Of our online programs. So the research that you’re talking about, it was a study completed by Ithaca SR, where they surveyed more than 540 hiring managers and recruiters nationwide, and that they found that the difference in employer preference for entirely

in-person degrees versus online was really shrinking and has gotten quite small. An in-person degree increased the likelihood of a candidate selection by only two and a half percentage points over an otherwise identical online degree. And so by comparison, factors like relevant work experience and demonstrated skills are beginning to play a much larger role in the hiring decision that we’re that.

You know, that’s what they’re telling us. and it’s really significant because it suggests that the perceived quality gap between traditional and online education has narrowed. The study also found that.

Institutional selectivity mattered less than many of us in higher education might have assumed. Moving from a less selective institution to a more selective one changed the hiring preferences by only about five to six percentage points. So employers are, yeah, right? I thought it was interesting. I I know I just had a bias really revealed.

Wesley Smith (01:56.163)
Interesting. Yeah. I

Right. Yeah. I th I thought that the gap would be much larger than that.

Amy Glynn (02:06.719)
Yeah, and it’s because employers are increasingly asking, can this person do the job? Rather than simply where did they go to school? And for the students we serve, that’s incredibly important. For millions of working adults, parents, rural students, students with disabilities, military learners, online education isn’t a second choice. It’s the model that makes higher education possible. and our students are

Are often already employed. And so they’re leading teams, they’re serving in the military, they’re raising families, applying what they’re learning in real time. And they don’t just graduate with a credential, they’re graduating with experiences, resiliency, practical skills that employers are increasingly valuing. So, in many ways, our students are embodying exactly what this research suggests. Employers are asking candidates.

Who can demonstrate competency and contribute immediately in the workplace?

Wesley Smith (03:05.314)
This is this seems to be really good news for presidents forum institutions. What should their takeaway be from it?

Amy Glynn (03:12.021)
I think the takeaway really is the work we are doing right now is being recognized. and and the the programs we have to to be able to identify and for our students to be able to demonstrate the skills that they have gained or advanced within their education is going to really be an important part of the student presenting the portfolio to advance their career.

Right, so it’s no longer just the transcript, but how do we demonstrate the skills that a student has acquired to future employers? Or how do we help the students build that portfolio of demonstratable skills and present that information to employers either in the in the hiring or the promotion process?

Wesley Smith (03:59.416)
Right. Right. Well, Amy, we appreciate you taking time to review this with us. Of course, we’ll add this in in the show notes and we’ll encourage our not only the president’s forum institutions and leaders to look at it, but I mean gr encouraging information for all students to review before they decide on programs of study and what their options look like. Thanks, Amy.

Amy Glynn (04:21.93)
Absolutely. Thanks.

AI Agents Are Becoming Every Student’s Digital Guide

AI Agents Are Becoming Every Student’s Digital Guide

by | Jul 22, 2026 | Innovation

AI Agents Are Becoming Every Student’s Digital Guide

Artificial intelligence is changing higher education, but the biggest opportunity isn’t replacing people—it’s helping institutions deliver more personalized support to every student.

In a conversation with the Presidents Forum, Outrival Founder and CEO Ruben Harris shared a vision for how AI agents can strengthen enrollment, student support, retention, and lifelong engagement by working alongside institutional staff rather than replacing them.

What’s novel today will soon be normal

Harris argues that every major technological shift initially feels disruptive before becoming commonplace. Just as email and computers transformed higher education, AI agents are poised to become a standard part of how institutions serve students.

The question for higher education isn’t whether AI will become part of the student experience—it’s how institutions will use it to improve outcomes.

Every student could have a personal AI guide

One of Harris’s most compelling ideas is that every student will eventually have an AI agent that stays with them throughout their relationship with an institution.

Rather than replacing advisors or financial aid professionals, the AI agent becomes a trusted first point of contact—answering questions, providing reminders, and connecting students to the right person at the right time. That relationship could continue well beyond graduation, helping alumni reconnect for career support, upskilling, and lifelong learning.

AI should improve the student experience—and the employee experience

For large institutions serving tens or hundreds of thousands of learners, personalized outreach has always been difficult.

AI agents can handle routine, high-volume interactions, allowing staff to focus on conversations that require empathy, judgment, and expertise. The result is a better experience for students while reducing repetitive work that often contributes to employee burnout and turnover.

Start with measurable outcomes

Harris encourages institutional leaders to approach AI through focused pilots with clearly defined goals.

Rather than implementing AI broadly, institutions should identify a specific challenge—such as enrollment outreach or student support—measure results over 30 to 90 days, and expand successful solutions. The emphasis should remain on measurable outcomes that improve service to students while creating operational efficiencies.

The bottom line

AI agents are not the future of higher education because they automate tasks.

They represent the future because they can help institutions deliver more personalized support at scale, allowing every student to receive timely guidance while enabling staff to focus on the human interactions that matter most.

Transcript

Wesley Smith (00:00.608)

Ruben, thanks for joining us today.

Ruben Harris (00:03.874)
Thank you for having me.

Wesley Smith (00:05.44)
Hey, for our presence forum audience, can you tell us a little bit about your background? It’s an interesting background, and then also introduce out rival to us.

Ruben Harris (00:14.03)
So I’ll with Outrival. So Outrival creates AI agents that we call digital workers for high volume organizations to create personalized interactions with their customers. So when you think about higher education, those use cases tend to be in enrollment management, bill pay debt collection, inbound student support, and then retention. And so we are currently doing over 3 million calls a month. And the way that we got into this.

Wesley Smith (00:40.712)
wow.

Ruben Harris (00:42.274)
This world is before this, we ran an organization called Career Karma. Career Karma built its own enrollment management team of about 300 people with me and my co-founder, Timormeister. we had about two million people a month coming to us trying to get enrolled into vocational schools. So we learned everything about not just enrollment management funnels and retention, but all of the things that you need to do to serve a student when it comes to psychology.

follow-up nudges, motivations, wraparound support and things like that. before that I worked at three different startups in education, healthcare and politics. The first one wasn’t education. It was called alt school focus on pre-cise education for K th grade students. The second one was called Honor, which was a marketplace for caregivers and their families in hospitals. And then the third one was actually in politics with with Hustle, which is another reason why I’m excited about President’s Forum at Hustle. We actually

worked on bi-directional communication for text message for through text message for political campaigns. so I really learned a lot about not just communication for politics, but how to raise money for big political parties. And before that I was an investment banker for three years. And then before that I’ve been playing the cello since I was four years old. I’ve done Carnegie Hall twice and that’s a little bit about my background.

Wesley Smith (02:04.779)
We got a little bit of everything. I like I didn’t know the cello. That that’s that’s really interesting. Twice at Carnegie Hall. That’s cool.

Ruben Harris (02:08.63)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Twice at Carnegie Hall, I was a my Montessori school kid. So I learned about music through Montessori School. and my teacher, Bonnie Bull, that I started with, top violin and cello. And so yeah, I work with her, President Wolfgang Laufer, and and many other great cellists in the world.

Wesley Smith (02:25.093)
wow.

Wesley Smith (02:31.797)
So I mean, w maybe some music at an upcoming presence forum meeting. We’ll bring the cello out. that sounds good. Well, hey, you’ve made a really interesting observation. You y you made the observation that what sounds strange today is just early. Tell tell me what you mean by that, and and I reserve the right to to follow that up with with another kind of leading question. Go ahead.

Ruben Harris (02:36.403)
Yeah. I think we should do that, yeah.

Ruben Harris (02:58.538)
Yeah. I mean a lot of things that look novel in the beginning is just normal. That’s actually I I took that language actually directly from President Miller Mill Iron, where we did an interview last week and he was just talking about like what’s novel is normal. He actually gave an example of of email being introduced into the school and how a lot of people were very in against actual computers and email in the classroom, very similar to the introduction of AI, but then

Now obviously AI and computers are very normal in classrooms. I’m a student of history. I read a lot of books, a lot of biographies, and I know that we’re going through a lot of changes with AI faster than we’ve ever seen. And that quote was just a reminder that this is the same thing that you guys have seen before. And I I showed that picture of people in a boardroom where we gotta not we gotta change and and stop hoping that our

our strategy of of hoping that a the internet’s gonna go away is gonna be is gonna work. You gotta kinda like sit there and and accept that the internet is here, AI is here, AI agents are here. So what are we gonna do with them to empower our employees better and also to empower our students better? And if we’re gonna help our future leaders of the world, they’re going to need to be using AI agents in the workplace. And so

Not everybody in the workplace is using AI agents yet, but from my perspective there will be more AI agents than humans on the planet and more AI agents in the workforce than humans on the planet and we have to figure out how to work together with them.

Wesley Smith (04:36.361)
Yeah, yeah, really interesting. Okay. So so my question is, so str it’s it’s the new normal, right? Like to see see things that are looking very novel, very strange. What what in higher education do you think looks kind of interesting now that in, you know, two years will be like super mainstream?

Ruben Harris (04:43.361)
Uh-huh, huh.

Uh-huh.

Ruben Harris (04:58.776)
So part of the reason why I’m very excited about the present form is you all are the you all serve the the largest number of students. And it’s it’s not a lot of people when they think about schools that have large numbers of students, they usually think for profits, but present form is obviously a lot of nonprofits. You have schools like Mommy Day that we work with and and many other schools like that. What what I think is is interesting about that is whenever I talk to a small school, I actually

Tell them they actually don’t need to work without Rival because they have enough humans to personally serve all of their students when they reach out to them or when they’re reaching out to the student, right? If you’re doing with the if you’re dealing with a large organization, even if you have ten thousand employees and you have a hundred thousand students or in some cases two hundred or three hundred thousand students, it’s impossible for a human to reach out to that many people, especially when you have to touch them at least.

five plus times because these are working adults. these aren’t just people that are going there for four years that there’s an online component. So these people are are are I’m gonna use another quote that that Mark Melion uses. He calls them anders. These are people that are parents and online students. These are people that are actually doing things and so they need some kind of personalized interaction. So what I think is going to be normalized is every student is going to be able to have

some type of a digital worker or an AI agent that not only guides them from inquiry or prospect into enrollment, but also stays with them throughout their entire school experience through graduation. But that digital worker is a collaboration partner or a co-intelligence with your human staff and they’ll always be able to route the student to the right human at the right time in your organization. And when they graduate from the school,

Wesley Smith (06:50.005)
Right.

Ruben Harris (06:55.756)
that student can still reach out to their AI agent that was with them from the beginning. And that AI agent can connect them with the right human at the right time at the school because humans sometimes leave organizations. Right. And so that’s gonna be normalized for sure.

Wesley Smith (07:12.543)
Yeah, that’s interesting. I I mean that’s the first time I’ve heard that articulated. I I I’ve heard a lot about AI agents and you know, we’re we’re gonna be using you know, to decrease friction in the enrollment process or others. But I like that concept of having your own personal, almost like liaison to the institution that can that can then route you to whether it’s, you know,

Ruben Harris (07:14.658)
Yeah. Yeah.

Wesley Smith (07:39.445)
financial aid help or or admissions help or academic help or alumni support or or whatever. That’s that’s a cool vision.

Ruben Harris (07:48.111)
Think I think on top of it too, if you think about the the increasing focus on what is the purpose of education, people are thinking about cost. Some people will say, it’s just to make a better student, a better person, community, find your wife, whatever, right? Some people will say going to school and paying all that money is to get a job that pays you more than what you had to pay in tuition, right? And so from an outcomes perspective, I think it’s currently very difficult to know.

where all of your alumni goes from a employment perspective in the future. But if they have a relationship with their digital worker or their AI agent, you can probably get more accurate and up-to-date employment information in the future from that digital worker. And if you think about the whole circle of life, after you get a skill and you get into a job, you at some point are probably going to need more education. So that digital worker can also route you to the right.

person or the right course that you might need in the future as well.

Wesley Smith (08:49.757)
Especially today. I mean, with with the the landscape in the work world changing so quickly, you’ll have to reskill, you’ll have to upskill, you’ll have to I mean, you just have to be resilient. You have to be able to, you know, change when things change. And things are changing so much faster. The cycle of change is coming so much faster that that makes a lot of sense that this this, you know, liaison could also help you upskill, reskill, you know, to whatever whatever the workforce dictates.

Ruben Harris (08:58.403)
Mm-hmm.

Ruben Harris (09:17.858)
Yeah. My my favorite book that ties to your liaison analogy is called Cointelligence by Ethan Mollock. He’s a professor at Wharton. It’s a very short book, but it just gives you the framework and the mindset for how to think about these digital workers. It’s almost like your staff got promoted. I mean several of the people in the president’s forum already have lots of humans. Sometimes a third or two thirds of their whole staff is dedicated to the phones. But if you think about

What are they doing on the phones? A lot of it is waiting for people to pick up the phone, right? So here’s another thing to think about that’s going to be normalized. Right now in the higher ed, there are certain schools that are best in class at speed to lead, right? They have the best humans that are can reach out immediately when somebody fills out a form. I actually think that that capability is going to be normalized and every school is going to be able to do that with AI agents and digital work.

So what’s gonna make you different? It’s gonna be that speed to meaningful conversation where the digital worker might be able to reach out to the to the lead immediately and then route it to the right human in a certain kind of way. Right. So everybody’s served in a different way. You got everybody’s providing education, very similar to a restaurant, right? If you you everybody has food, but what makes everything different is the service. And what that’s also gonna do is gonna increase the quality of life.

for the employee. Call centers in general at schools have high churn rates. We all know this, right? Because they’re smiling and dialing. And sometimes if you’re dealing with Bill Pay, people are hanging up the phone on you, right? But if I can only talk to people that want to talk to me and the digital worker can talk to the people that aren’t ready to talk to me, how do we think about lead scoring and high intent and low intent and medium intent?

Wesley Smith (10:52.831)
Right. Yeah.

Wesley Smith (10:59.209)
Yeah, yeah.

Ruben Harris (11:13.602)
The digital workers can help you identify who’s ready and who’s not. And then the humans can really love their job and actually retain better. You don’t have to deal with turnover and retraining so much.

Wesley Smith (11:22.847)
Yeah, that makes sense to me. That makes sense. So you know, we’re talking about a really exciting future and you’re working with a lot of higher ed institutions. And I’m curious for your insight on what what kind of distinguishes, in your opinion, some some leaders who are cutting edge and that are, you know, qu early adopters and seeing good results versus those who who aren’t so much. Is there anything within, you know, leadership that you see that you could say, I

Ruben Harris (11:32.044)
Yeah.

Wesley Smith (11:52.649)
I think I I think that I think that that person is doing something right.

Ruben Harris (11:57.635)
I really love that question. Cause at first I was thinking you were asking me what am I doing different? But I like that you’re asking what are leaders doing different. Okay. Number one, if a school knows their numbers code, that’s great. You’d be surprised how many schools do not know their numbers. Number two, do you have an outbound call motion, whether that’s in house or through a third party call center through

a BPO or some offshore capability. That’s number two. Number three, what are your strategic priorities that you’re trying to move right now? So the issue with a lot of AI agents in production is that it’s usually focused on time saving, productivity, making people more efficient. Those things are great. The problem with it is as a leader, you spend a lot of time

Wesley Smith (12:28.416)
Mm-hmm.

Ruben Harris (12:56.162)
Setting up a pilot, investing a lot of money. And then it takes you a long time to know whether it worked or not. What’s really cool about a use case, let’s just use enrollment as an example, or even bill pay debt collection as an example, is you can see whether that worked in a day or a week. Right? So, so and so very quick feedback. And so you want to have the dashboards.

Wesley Smith (13:17.417)
Yeah. It’s pr pretty quick feedback.

Ruben Harris (13:24.172)
And the metrics to be able to see not only how your metrics are moving, right? But you also want to be able to see all the other metrics, like what is the effect of your dial attempts? How how what what’s more effective from a time of day perspective? Are you doing A B tests with male or female voices? One of our schools that we work with, Penn Foster, they’re doing over 50 experiments to really see what serves the student in the best way.

So the long story short is we we suggest that you create a pilot. The best leaders create pilots, but we we time box it. So it’ll either be 30 or 90 days. So we call it an internship for digital worker. And and student and higher ed leaders are familiar with internships, right? What do you do with an intern? You give them a job, you give them a job description. Don’t create a one-size-fits-all agent. Give the agent a job description, focus on the metrics.

If the metrics moved, great. Bring on that digital worker as a full time member of your team and add it as a member of your of your staff. It could do the work of 10 people augmenting the work of 100. Awesome. If it doesn’t work, don’t hire the the digital worker full time, but make it very outcomes based. And ideally, and I know people don’t always like talking about money in higher ed, it’s something that should make you money. So the best leaders that I’ve seen, the pilot is structured in a way.

Wesley Smith (14:35.445)
Right.

Ruben Harris (14:52.77)
where it actually makes you more money than you paid and it’s short and it is set up in a use case where you can deploy it at scale where maybe in the pilot phase it might make you hundreds of thousands of dollars. And s in our case, we’ve seen some p pilots make millions of dollars in thirty to ninety days. I’m talking about four million plus. And then if you deploy it at scale, you could actually make tens and even eventually hundreds of millions of dollars that goes back into reinvesting

Wesley Smith (15:13.887)
Wow. Yeah.

Ruben Harris (15:22.7)
and serving students and empowering teachers.

Wesley Smith (15:24.917)
Yeah, I love I love that last portion that that it it it’s really about reinvesting the the capital into more useful in into more useful and probably human-centered activities, right? It goes back into personalized education and instruction. You can ha you can you can utilize your your personnel in more effective ways because you’re not utilizing you know, humans to do

wrote tasks or tasks that that that a computer can do for you.

Ruben Harris (15:58.151)
I’m going give another analogy for the AI agent that’s it’s kind of stealing a little thunder for the interview that I did with with Mark, but he said that higher ed has always used AI agents. And he gives an example of writing a book. he’s written a lot of books and articles. And as a grad student, he worked with an author, let’s call him Wesley, right? And the grad students put all the material together and then the book was published. And great. That was awesome. Guess what the grad students were?

Wesley Smith (16:27.659)
They were yeah. Yeah. Sure.

Ruben Harris (16:27.682)
They were the AI agents for Wesley, the author, right? So today now the grad students can have AI agents, the professors could have AI agents, and they could all work together. So use that analogy in your head, going back to like going being a student of history, it’s actually not novel. Like history, you know, and the future and the present, they all rhyme together. And then not there’s also the that’s nothing’s original. So what sounds strange is just early. You j and you just haven’t really picked up that it’s it’s familiar actually.

Wesley Smith (16:56.971)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, great conversation. I I wanna conclude with the last question, you know, you’re new member of the forum. We we’re we’re glad to have you. tell us a little bit about what you think we can accomplish together. What what can the forum and outrival do that will improve education?

Ruben Harris (17:16.738)
Well, thank you for for inviting us to be a member of the President of Forum. We are true believers that you move at the speed of your relationships. And you I’m not gonna say the cliche quote about going farther together, but you you know the importance of collaboration. but I I did say the quote pretty much. But the the reason why I’m excited about the president of forum is not just because of the collaboration and the action items that you take, but

that the group collectively is is speaking out to people to try to teach people to learn. You all are clearly focused on content like we are. Part of the reason why our Rival created the the new normal podcast is because a lot of people started asking us questions like what you’re asking me now. What are you seeing from other leaders and what are they doing? So we would do a lot of customer references, a lot of introductions, but a lot of those customers never really had the time. And so presence form is great because we’re creating content together.

We’re sharing stories. It’s not a a commercial sale. We’re not trying to do do vendor stuff. We’re trying to educate the community and serve people. and and then you all don’t don’t just do things virtually, you all do things in person as well. And so I am very excited to to collaborate in that regard and yeah, help other people follow the examples of the leaders here to hopefully

prepare the future of leaders of the world. And last thing that I’ll say, I take it very personally because I think that there’s a cost to not doing things. Right. Yes, our schools have been around for thousands of years and there’s over four thousand schools in in the co in in the w out here. And if they don’t do things, not only are students going to be at a disadvantage, I think that schools some schools will shut down. and I think that there’s a way to run schools sustainably, leverage technology and

Wesley Smith (18:52.394)
Right.

Ruben Harris (19:12.487)
I am going to do my best to make sure that nobody has to shut down.

Wesley Smith (19:17.225)
Hey, now you’re on now you’re on Presence Forum talking points where you’re talking about, hey, we need to use technology, leverage it, we need to decrease costs with it, make it more sustainable, make it a better return for all of our students, because at the end of the day, that’s what the Presidents Forum’s all about is is driving outcomes for students and with with the use of technology. We call it accountable innovation at the the presence forum. We you know.

Ruben Harris (19:20.918)
Mm.

Wesley Smith (19:41.917)
Innovation, you know, for innovation’s sake isn’t necessarily what we’re pursuing. We’re we want to see innovation that drives better student experience. It’s lower costs and better outcomes. So that’s what we’re working on together.

Ruben Harris (19:54.366)
That’s it. Let’s do it together. And thanks again for having me on the present forum and let me know how how else I can help.

Wesley Smith (20:02.186)
You got it. Thanks, Ruben. Thanks for joining.

Ruben Harris (20:04.313)
No.

Rethinking How Students Finance Higher Education

Rethinking How Students Finance Higher Education

by | Jul 21, 2026 | Outcomes and Accountability, Policy

Rethinking How Students Finance Higher Education

For many students, the biggest barrier to earning a degree isn’t getting admitted—it’s figuring out how to pay for it.

As recent federal policy changes reshape financial aid and today’s learners balance work, family, military service, and education, institutions are looking beyond traditional funding models to help students complete their degrees. Leaders from National University, NCHER, and CLASP joined the Presidents Forum to discuss how colleges, employers, lenders, and policymakers can work together to create more sustainable pathways to affordability.

Today’s students need more flexible financing

Today’s learners are very different from the traditional college student for whom many financial aid systems were originally designed.

Many students are working full-time, raising families, serving in the military, or returning to college after years in the workforce. At the same time, recent changes to federal student aid have reduced borrowing capacity for some students, making it even more important to understand all available financing options.

Paying for college requires shared responsibility

Federal aid remains the foundation of college affordability, but the panel argued that it can no longer carry the entire burden.

Institutions are expanding scholarship programs, employers are investing in tuition assistance and student loan repayment, and responsible private financing can help students bridge unavoidable funding gaps. Workforce shortages in healthcare, manufacturing, and other high-demand industries are also encouraging employers to invest directly in the talent they need.

Transparency matters

Students and families need straightforward information about tuition, fees, financing options, and the long-term affordability of a degree—not just during enrollment, but throughout their academic journey.

The panel encouraged institutions to provide more personalized financial counseling, helping students understand the full range of funding options available before financial challenges become barriers to completion.

Student success begins with financial success

Financial aid is no longer simply an enrollment function.

When students unexpectedly encounter funding gaps, many stop out despite being academically successful. Helping students develop a sustainable financial plan from enrollment through graduation improves persistence, completion, and workforce readiness.

Supporting students financially is one of the most effective student success strategies institutions can adopt.

The bottom line

Helping more students earn a college credential will require collaboration across higher education, employers, lenders, and government.

The future of college affordability isn’t a single funding source—it’s a coordinated ecosystem that gives students clear information, flexible financing options, and the support they need to reach graduation.

Transcript

Wes Smith (00:01.661)
Welcome everyone. Today we’re discussing how students are financing higher education beyond federal aid, including private financing options, employer-supported education, and other models that will help students and families navigate paying for a higher education. I’m joined today by Amy Glynn from National University. Amy’s also a visiting fellow at the President’s Forum.

Alex Ricci, the president of the National Council of Higher Education Resources, also known as NCHAR, and David Kafafian, the COO of CLASP. So thanks to our distinguished panel for joining us today and welcome.

David Kafafian (00:42.742)
Thanks for it.

Wes Smith (00:44.467)
Let’s let’s start with question the first question on on the top, Amy, can you set the stage for us? Why is this discussion about how students are funding their education? Why is it important in this moment?

Amy Glynn (01:16.635)
Well, I think we’re seeing several trends really converging at once. First, we have students who are facing greater financial uncertainty, right? While federal aid remains the foundation of college affordability, it’s often not enough to cover the tuition and fees, to say nothing about the full cost of attendance. And paying for college isn’t just about tuition, it’s about including books, supplies, living expenses.

David Kafafian (01:24.118)
Yeah.

Amy Glynn (01:41.426)
Tied right into that. Secondly, is the fact that learners themselves have changed. The profile of who we are supporting in college and paying for college is not the same. Nearly three-quarters of today’s college students are considered non-traditional. They are students and they’re working. They’re students and they’re supporting families. They’re students and they’re serving in the mid military, or they’re returning to education after years in the workforce, right?

Wes Smith (02:06.077)
And and Amy, you have a term for that at National.

Amy Glynn (02:09.489)
We do. We like to call these students anders because, like I said, they’re students and something or many other things in life. And we need to ensure that we are educating and serving the whole student that comes to our institution. And so financing needs have changed and they don’t.

Wes Smith (02:12.373)
Okay.

Amy Glynn (02:31.921)
For our ANDRES or our non-traditional students, they don’t always fit the traditional academic calendars or assumptions built into the federal aid programs. And then the third thing I’m gonna say is that institutions and employers are recognizing that financing is no longer just a financial aid conversation. It’s a conversation about student success. It’s a conversation about completion. When students can’t bridge that relatively small funding gap, they often stop out.

Right, even when they’re in good ad but academic standing, the number one reason that students cite for leaving school is broadly financing. And that is a huge issue. And so to create more interest in responsible employer partnership, private financing options, payments, other solutions that can all complement the federal system.

That’s where we’re all trying to work together to figure out what are those solutions for the future of higher education and the success of our students. And that’s why I’m actually super excited to have both CLASP and NSHAR who are doing great work in this space to have a conversation about some of the things that institutions are doing, some of the innovation that is happening in the funding model, and to figure out how we can really start to serve students financially in a more holistic manner.

Wes Smith (03:53.971)
Right. Amy, I love the I love the setup. Alex, I know, I know that this is the heart of what you do. I’m and there’s there’s really nobody that feels this finance pressure quite like the institutions, but an extension of that is is your work at NShare. And you’re working on on ways that students can navigate this and get a higher education. What are you seeing out there? Why is this moment different?

Alex Ricci (04:23.045)
Well I

Appreciate you inviting me to this conversation. You’re exactly right. This is a really pivotal moment for many students and families as well as institutions. And driving most of the headlines are massive changes that Congress passed and the president signed into law last July fourth, so in 2025, with an implementation date of July one of this year. So just several weeks ago at the time of this recording. And so these massive public policy changes, which include things like new loan limits, both annual and aggregate.

In the federal student loan program, as well as scheduled reduction, which is a sort of fancy term to describe how now, if you’re a student attending less than full-time, you don’t necessarily qualify for that full loan amount. These changes are putting massive pressures on students and families that are well known in higher education, and new students that are entering for the first time who thought that they would have a certain amount of aid available to them and no longer.

Do. And when you combine that large change, we’re talking about something around $85 billion in new federal student loans that were dispersed in the last award year. Combined with all of the pressures that Amy mentioned, we’re looking at an environment that’s really difficult to navigate. So it’s important to have this conversation to focus on what entities are doing to step up and take a holistic approach to solving this problem for students and families.

Wes Smith (05:48.595)
Right. So you’ve seen and we’ve all seen a lot of changes starting July one, and they’re impacting the way that that the funding is available for different students pursuing different programs. I I know David that you’re on the front lines of this. And so I’m gonna ask a question to all the panelists, but I wanna hear from each of your vantage points w what are the most viable non federal options that you’re seeing right now that will help students. But David, I wanna start that with you.

David Kafafian (06:19.413)
Yeah. thank you again for having me and yes, thank you as Amy said for having me back. so look, first things first, we still want to respect that students should think about grants and savings first. They should then think about what federal loan options they have available. and then after that, that’s where the conversation really begins because these new loan caps, as as Alex and Amy talked about, will limit many students to twenty thousand, twenty thousand five hundred, fifty thousand, depending on what limit affects them per annum.

and that frequently will not cover the cost of their tuition fees, just room board, et cetera. I think many people think that the private market, the Sally Mays and Sofis and college ads of the world are going to just plug the hole left by the federal government. And we know that that’s not true. 96% of undergraduate private student loans are co-signed, 73%, as of last time I checked, of graduate loans, graduate private student loans are co-signed.

That means that if you are from an immigrant family and your parents don’t have a FIGO that carried here to the US, you’re from a lower middle income family. You’re a graduate student whose parents have just said, we’re done. We’ve done our part. There are many instances where a student will not have access to that private loan. And so then that’s where the kind of innovations need to begin. There’s two things that we see working here at Class that we’re thrilled to partner with schools and employers on. The first is on the access side.

where we work with universities that who themselves are offering gap loans as a loan of the last resort for their students, not requiring cosign or being properly disclosed under Regzi and you know meeting all of the compliance requirements that you would expect of anybody else. But ultimately these are programs that schools are offering and that they’re not making money on. They they lose money on these programs, but it is a way for a student to persist because there’s nothing worse than the student who has to stop out because they have a $7,000 gap. and then they end up with getting no degree.

That’s bad for them, that’s bad for society. School has a graduation rate hit and a potentially a cohort default rate risk. So that’s option one is is schools to actually step in and support their students here. Option two, and one that we also love working on, is is actually working with employers. So go to the the the end of the value chain where students are ultimately trying to get to and work with them to either provide provide tuition assistance programs or student loan repayment as a benefit. And so

David Kafafian (08:37.281)
This won’t work in every part of the economy. It needs to be in a place where frankly employers need more talent than currently exists. But throughout clinical health care, we know a class that there’s you know 50 some odd health systems that have already signed on with us to offer anywhere from thirty thousand to a hundred and eighty thousand dollars of loan repayment on the back end. So the student still has to go get their own loan funding. but then once they graduate and pass licensure, every month that they work at that employer, they’re getting five hundred, a thousand, two thousand dollars a month.

directly to their loan servicers. and so again, I think there’s plentiful opportunities that that can exist. healthcare’s not the only place, but it’s the place that that we’ve we’re focused on here at Class.

Wes Smith (09:14.739)
Yeah. Alex, I I want you to weigh in on the employer as a funder in higher education. I we we’re seeing that, you know, specifically with what what David mentioned and and the programs in healthcare that they’re working on. have you seen this employer funding, you know, the step up from employers in a wider array than more than just healthcare, or where are we seeing those types of programs?

Alex Ricci (09:45.144)
Employers want a qualified workforce. And right now, colleges and universities are the ones that are doing the lion’s share of providing that educated workforce of the future. And so we do see a number of employers that are stepping up. David mentioned that healthcare is a big one, and for very good reason. We have an aging population and there’s just always a a need for those kinds of individuals to assist in every stage of life. But we do see other industries that are beginning to pop up and show more interest in helping fund

A student’s education and it spans more than just healthcare. So, a couple of examples include advanced manufacturing. We see a lot of emphasis now being put on trades, what we would consider historically blue-collar work as we look to build out more energy infrastructure, as we seek to build out artificial intelligence infrastructure. These kinds of jobs that power that economy are really in demand. And so employers that are performing that work are more than happy to help do tuition reimbursement or

other types of partnerships at the front end, not necessarily student loan repayment, to make sure that these students have the money that they need to complete that program.

Wes Smith (10:53.673)
Right. Right. I’ve seen I I I mean recently I saw that Meta is working on you mentioned the you know the energy infrastructure and the and and the work that goes into that, that they’re funding some some trades that that will help that workforce. I’ve seen, you know, in the microchip manufacturing sec sector, we’ve seen strategic investments that that businesses and employers are stepping up there. And and I think that this is, you know, more

Of a trend, hopefully, that we’ll see moving forward into the future. Amy, anything that you want to add to non-federal options that we’re seeing and and that people should be aware of?

Amy Glynn (11:35.027)
well, I I think there’s two things that I I want to address. The first is when I look at financing of education, I think about who gets the benefit of it of that education, right? Society gets the benefit when we have more a more educated population and there is able to be better a better

ready workforce. And so that’s where the federal government and taxpayers are investing in the federal financial aid system. Institutions benefit, obviously, we are in the business of bettering the lives and of providing education. And that’s where we see institutions investing in scholarshipping and discounting programs to support students. The student is obviously committing a financial obligation in the loans that they are taking and the time commitment that they are providing.

And then the fourth one is employers. And so really to the conversation about the employer investment who is benefiting directly from the education that a student receives to me, like that’s the quadrant we need to look at in resolving the funding gap. This in addition to that though, I am gonna say like we’re talking about the back end of the equation. And if we’re gonna talk about the back end of the equation, we have to talk about the math that goes into the front end. And that means that we need to be talking about

How we are pricing higher education, how we are having cost transparency.

What those pricing models look like, how we drive operational efficiency in higher education, how we reduce the cost and the confusion that students are facing when they are making a selection. I don’t want to oversimplify this, but I’m in Arizona and there’s this car dealership, and they offer what’s called no bull pricing. And they literally tell you: we are going to tell you exactly what the price.

Amy Glynn (13:29.736)
Is for the car. There’s no games, there’s no like, like, here’s what we paid, here are the add-ons, and here’s what we’re gonna charge you, and we’re not gonna, we’re not gonna haggle. Right. And like that idea of having a window sticker where a student understands exactly how much the education is, what comes with that price, and what their funding options are is a place that we need to get to. So I really believe in simplification of our pricing model.

transparency of our pricing model so we understand what is the financial end that we need to come up with at the end.

Wes Smith (14:06.759)
Amy, I you’re you’re speaking like somebody who may have gone through this process recently with a child and seen this firsthand.

Amy Glynn (14:15.184)
I mean, I’m speaking as someone who has spent over 20 years in the financial aid industry and who has also helped their own child through a really horrific process of trying to understand the cost associated with her education and what options were truly available to us. And I will say, being where we sit.

in the the income quadrants that we sit in, there’s not a lot of options unless we want to be, you know, $60,000 in debt every year for our child’s education.

Wes Smith (15:02.495)
Right. Right. I I I love the perspective that it brought going through it. Like not only have you been a professional in it for 20 years, and we’ve had this conversation before here at the presence forum on a podcast. It’s just stunning to me that a professional who knows the the industry in and out still, when you go through the process personally and you’re dealing with a lot of different institutions.

It’s tough to navigate. I can only imagine how hard it is for parents that have no expertise in this area. It’s not, they’re not professionals. They haven’t, you know, been been doing it for decades, and and they’re thrown in to the same kind of chaos. That’s this is this is a tough thing for parents and students to navigate. There’s no question about that.

Amy Glynn (15:51.795)
So I will tell you, orientation was orientation was two weeks ago. We registered for courses. She registered for the exact courses that her advisor suggested. We get a note two two days later. Hey, just wanted to let you know there’s a tuition overload fee. And I was like, how much how many credits did the tuition cover? I thought it covered up to 18. And it was like, I don’t know. I can’t find it. I’m like, great, we can’t find it on the website. Let’s call. Right. And like

David Kafafian (15:51.989)
And what’s the card?

Amy Glynn (16:21.551)
I knew what I had to look for. The information was not there. And here we are: tuition overload fee.

Wes Smith (16:30.355)
Yeah, you need some no bull pricing. I I heard

Amy Glynn (16:32.818)
Apparently, if you want to take more than 16 credits at Institution X, you need to pay an additional $252.

Wes Smith (16:41.737)
Yeah, it’s it’s a wild process and and it can be frustrating, I know. And and this is, you know, this is one of the reasons that it’s you know, if you pull Americans today on issues that that they’re facing, consistently student loans are and and student finance, you know, financing of higher education is on people’s mind. And there’s a reason for that. It’s not just because, you know, it is is because people go through it, they’re frustrated, and then they see the outcome.

And they’re like, I I how did I get in the position I’m in? So this is a really timely conversation. yep.

David Kafafian (17:18.241)
Well, so I can put some if I could put some like some some precise numbers on it because this hasn’t been publicly released yet, but we we had just commissioned a a study of students ourselves here at Clasp and

As of 36 hours ago, so you know, you’ll you’ll hear it first. some ones that stood out to me in no particular order. 51% of students have considered dropping out for financial reasons, 20% have seriously considered it, 78% report monthly financial strain of some kind. and then the one that is again specific to the sector that we focus on, healthcare, but I I think it is very telling. 61% say becoming a healthcare professional is not realistic without family wealth or outside support. That is like

Wes Smith (17:33.825)
perfect.

David Kafafian (18:00.194)
Horrifying state of affairs. Any one of us, 100% of the population, can be a patient of healthcare at any given time. And so when you see numbers like that, paired with everything Amy just shared, you understand why employers are coming to the table. I think employers, you know, this administration has tried to pull employers further in. And I just think that the the the brass hacks of it all, what I just laid out, means that employers who used to kind of say that our education

and the financing of was kind of upstream of them. It wasn’t where they needed to pay their attention. They are increasingly becoming aware that their talent pipelines and their viability is at risk without going upstream themselves and thinking about how to support students and families there. And of course, you know, risk sharing doesn’t mean that the employers will take all of the risk. They will not pin the full check no matter what. And so I I think innovative models that do actually provide risk sharing, but the student owns their own.

academic success. and the employers then share in some of or all the costs on the back end, I think is, you know, just one of the many ways that this can happen. But but again, the the the path we’re going down is not sustainable given the numbers I just share.

Wes Smith (19:08.605)
Yeah, absolutely. And and great that’s great, that’s great information to have. Very timely. Thanks for sharing that, David. Alex, I want to come your way, but I wanna I wanna swap slightly. While there is employer help that’s needed, we we have to have employers engaged. They’re filling a a a very important gap, especially in in industries of high need. But I also don’t want to

miss the institutions role in this, the higher ed institutions. How can higher education institutions help students navigate options that might be available and and do it in a responsible way to, you know, keep costs as low as possible?

Alex Ricci (19:54.887)
Well, three items come to mind. I had four, but Amy hit the nail on the head when she talked about examining the pricing of programs and cost transparency for students and families. I think that that’s paramount. You have to make sure that on the front end those things are done well. But taking a lesson learned from private student lenders and other participants in the nonprofit counseling world, one thing that NCHAR members in particular make sure that they do is sit down with that would-be borrower and have a very open conversation about.

About what it means to take out a loan. What does it mean for their long-term projection and what they want to pursue in life? And these things are understood, it’s interactive, it’s personal. And so similarly, I think that there could be a lesson there for institutions of education. How do we step up our counseling and student success efforts? Because at the end of the day, we would hate to have that student drop out for reasons that could be that $252 charge that you didn’t know you were gonna have, and you had only set your budget or your financing according to

According to what you thought you had to pay. obviously it can be much more dramatic than $250 as well. It could be a blown flat tire. And so making sure that you set those things not just up and you have the infrastructure, but that students and families are aware of it. I think that would be item number one that I would flag for institutions of higher education. The second item that I would highlight for institutions of higher education, college, universities, no matter what population you serve, is to talk to other entities in your area. So it’s not

Just employers, it’s high school counselors, it’s foundations in the area, community development foundations. How are your programs educating that workforce of the future so that your students, when they graduate, get into employment or pursue their passion in a way that’s productive for the institution in the long run and students in the community that you serve? And finally, it’s not the end-all be-all solution, but increasingly, students and families will rely on private education loans to help.

Finance their way through school. And that there is an obligation or an opportunity for institutions to put out an RFP and do a preferred lender list and point students and families to those lenders that you have vetted that maybe have the best interest rates or the best backend benefits or payment assistance benefits. Maybe these are lenders that are going to take responsibly, take a risk and lend to a borrower that has either a very thin.

Alex Ricci (22:24.446)
Credit file or no credit history, but they’re in a program that’s going to lead to economic mobility. And so laying these options, pointing students and families to those responsible actors is something institutions should take advantage of now so that students and families aren’t left out on their own and make poor decisions as a consequence of not having good information in front of them.

Wes Smith (22:47.197)
Alex, I I love, you know, well, all three of the of those points very valid. I I love the second point that you made there on there there are resources and there are opportunities that that students can take advantage of that are that are local resources or state level resources that are driving workforce issues, driving workforce opportunity. And I’ve seen that personally in in young people who are.

In high school and are put on a pathway to a workforce opportunity in high school that can then be compounded on in higher education. Do you have any specific things that you’ve seen in that where you’ve said, wow, that is a really great program that has has helped on the workforce trajectory that keeps costs low and you know, kind of is an add-on.

before you even get to higher education. I’m I’m curious if any of our panelists have seen opportunities like that.

Alex Ricci (23:54.034)
just to clarify your question, you’re asking, are there any interesting partnerships out there between private stakeholders and institutions that have helped pave the way for credit advancement or keeping college more affordable?

Wes Smith (24:09.085)
Yeah, well, I’m I’m just thinking like like there are workforce pathways now that have I know in the state of Utah there are workforce pathways in advanced manufacturing that begin in high school. And that you can you can get into these pathways and you have opportunities in in higher education that that wouldn’t be available necessarily to you. And I thought that, you know, that was that that that’s one of the issues that that you had called out of.

maybe there there are ways that you can leverage that that pathway, those exp that expertise that’s available even before higher education.

Alex Ricci (24:49.329)
Yeah, there’s there’s absolutely resources out there that can assist students and families, whether and it’s not just dual enrollment, credit for prior learning assessments exist all over the place, including at many institutions of higher education, where not just that traditional high school student going right out of high school and into a post-secondary program can benefit, but adult learners that are coming back that want to get that credential, they’ve learned a little something, they have experience, but they don’t necessarily

Have that diploma that signifies that they have certain competencies. And so building these things out is something institutions can do. It’s something employers in the community can help assist with, in addition to just the mere financing side of it. I would call out there there is a growing number of what’s called pay it forward programs or evolving door loan funds that are 0% or 1% interest rate loan programs that certain public entities or foundations have established.

And sometimes they are narrowly defined for nursing or radiology. But sometimes they’re not. Sometimes it’s HVAC and welding. And these are the sorts of programs. I know of one in New Jersey, which is a 0% interest rate loan program where it’s not just the loan, but there’s these wraparound supports that exist because employers in the area stepped up, the state government stepped up, a foundation stepped up. So participants, these students and families, they not just don’t just get that loan, which is great, that 0% interest rate loan.

loan, but they get a living siphon. They have access to mental health counseling to help them succeed. They have these other wraparound support services that guide them through the program. So when they take that leap from high school to college, they know exactly what they have to do in order to succeed.

Wes Smith (26:37.021)
And and that I like the idea that that can be tied to institutions of higher education can help guide and help bring those resources, surface them to potential students. And and I would love to see more institutions be expert, you know, have that expertise available for potential students so they can take advantage of all those resources.

David Kafafian (27:02.485)
Well, so I I I obviously I’m not a financial aid professional myself, but I work with many of them. I would certainly echo what you just said there. And I would say that anything that the Department of Ed or policymakers can do to give clarity, whether it’s through a dear colleague letter or otherwise, to universities and financial administrators about what they can speak about, because that too frequently I see financial aid administrators take the position of all we can do is a historical list that just brain dumps every lender that’s ever given ever lent to our students and nothing more.

And we’re in a moment where that is extremely not consumer friendly. Like I don’t blame the schools. I understand the fear that exists there, but that’s not helpful to a student or family. They’re getting a database unsorted or unfiltered to them. They’re not typically seeing many of the state options that are newly released here and plugged into any of these pay it forward funds that Alex is speaking about. so I I don’t envy being a university here, but I also don’t envy being a student or family for the reasons Amy said on that side of it.

I think it would be really, really helpful in this moment for the department to give some guidance around, you know, schools being able to lean in and not preference private lenders, but actually give students a bit more of a tailored bit of guidance so that there’s a better customer experience at the end of the day for the student who’s trying to navigate how do I think between workforce funding and state level funding and like a you know a state state agency and a traditional private lender and something else. And so it’s a tough moment, but it’s one that everybody’s gotta work together.

Wes Smith (28:23.391)
Right.

Wes Smith (28:30.097)
Amy, what’s your perspective on that from the institution side?

Amy Glynn (28:35.357)
Yeah, so there is there is plenty of leeway for universities to be able to talk, educate, and advise on funding options for students without offering preferential treatment. Right. We have had preferred lender lists. I don’t know, Alex, I feel like you probably know for exactly how long. I’m gonna say over a decade, within within higher education, which which is one of the gateways for us to make sure.

Sure, that we are speaking about lenders that align their products and their services appropriately to their students. I can tell you at National, when we started hearing about the changes, we did decide to go down the road of doing an RFI for a preferred lender list. Not telling stories out of school here, but as a veteran-founded institution, if that private lender

Did not offer full deferment options for a student who was deployed in active military service, the lender was eliminated from our list. We aligned the student protections to things that were important to us at our institution based on our mission and the support that we wanted to provide. So there are tools. Schools, school being a financial aid professional, right? The audit.

The program review, super scary thing. The department doesn’t come with like a warm batch of cookies telling you thank you so much for following the rules. They come with a hammer and they’re like, you didn’t follow the rules. and so I get it, it’s scary and the loss of title four is incredibly, incredibly scary for an institution.

So I’m gonna say my advice, financial aid professionals, your GC is your best friend, right? Your general counsel is your best friend, have conversations, see what you can do, find ways to be creative to ensure that we are advising students around all of their options. And that’s what Alex really talked about, right? Like that need to be able to have highly personalized conversations with students about what college is gonna cost, what their funding options are, and laying out all of the options to them and ensuring.

Amy Glynn (30:48.104)
That is not a one-time conversation. Financial aid advising is no longer a nice to have. It is a student success strategy that if your institution does not do it, well.

You are not serving your students and you are not serving yourself in any way. So if you’re an institution that’s like, this is a place I can really get better, there are a lot of institutions who are being really innovative, making great strides. They’re looking at their success models and figuring out how do we bring the conversation of finances and financial barriers to the forefront and address them proactively instead of reactively.

Wes Smith (31:29.405)
Yeah, well stated, Amy. That is absolutely correct. Our our institutions today, if they’re not being proactive on this, they’re missing. They’re missing a huge opportunity. And I like that you you mentioned that it’s all about student success. Financing is not it’s not a peripheral issue. It is it is right up front, and we have to be able to address that as institutions if we’re gonna have students be successful. So

Let me wrap this up. I I would just like to give each of you an opportunity to think through, you know, the big picture on this. But t give us give us one principle that students and families should use when they’re evaluating their options to pay for an education. What’s what’s one thing that they should know going in from your perspective that would be helpful for them to keep like right at the forefront?

I’ll I’ll start David, I’ll start with you and then Alex come your way and then Amy, I’ll give you the last word.

David Kafafian (32:33.523)
And one one principle is hard to to pin down. I I actually would start even before the financing question. And it’s it’s around is the program there and the un institution they’re attending, does the cost and value make sense to them? because it’s it’s a purchasing decision at the end of the day, and people don’t like to talk about school that way, but it absolutely is. And for many families, there is no good way to solve needing to finance a program that has an eighty thousand dollar cost of attendance.

and so I think starting with what is the cost of the program? And that again it would be easier in the in the way that Amy had described it if we got some noble pricing, but what is the cost of the program? How does it map to the value you expect? I I would actually encourage families to start right then and there because there are a ton of careers that we desperately need in the the current and the future workforce. and I think you know students focusing their attention there is the starting point to them then finding what is the pathway to financing that makes most sense for them.

Wes Smith (33:07.305)
Mm-hmm.

Wes Smith (33:33.063)
Right. The the value proposition of of the credential that you’re pursuing. Okay, that makes sense. Alex, w what’s your advice? what’s your your one principle that you would encourage, you know, parents and students to to look into?

David Kafafian (33:37.985)
Absolutely.

Alex Ricci (33:49.244)
If David’s one principle was take a long-term perspective and view your career goals in line with your educational program, I think mine builds off of that. Oftentimes, once you’ve done that, once you know kind of what you want to do or the program that you think will allow you the flexibility to pursue a career of your choosing, you just want to sign on the dotted line. Just okay, tell me where I need to sign to get the money I need to go to this school to to get on with my life. And my advice would be shop.

compare. I think Amy gave a great example earlier in this conversation when they were vetting private lenders and what mattered to their population of students and and their their founders of the institution, you know, they weren’t going to go with a lender that wasn’t going to have a full deferral for active duty military service members. Well similarly, like if the military is your thing, don’t just sign up with a private lender that has the lowest rate if you’re gonna have interest accrual when you’re active duty. So take the time to shop around to identify

the options that make the most sense. Frequently, that time pressure is real and you just want to get the money in your bank account as soon as possible or over to the institution. So my rule of thumb is shop and compare. There are lots of options out there and the more time you take to do that right, though your future self will thank you.

Wes Smith (35:06.917)
I I I love the advice and it gets us back to one of Amy’s, you know, observations. This this idea that it’s not as transparent as it seems. So there’s a lot of work to do. When you’re saying shop and compare, you’re saying do the homework, it’s worth it at the end of the day. Yeah. Okay. So Amy, we’ll give you the last word here. what what principle

Coming from a financial aid professional and somebody who’s just recently done this, what would you encourage parents and students to do?

Amy Glynn (35:37.588)
So this is the advice I gave my daughter when we were shopping for schools. I said, your choice about where you go to school is a trifecta. You need to start with the personal fit of the institution. Is the institution the right size for you? Is it in the right location? Is it in the right environment? Do you feel comfortable on campus?

Is it an academic fit for you? Does the institution that you are choosing offer the program that you are interested in and the quality or reputation of program that you desire?

And is it a financial fit? When we look at the cost and the funding available, can we afford this in year one? And do we have a sustainable funding path to be able to afford your entire four-year degree at that institution? Are you comfortable?

With the debt and the financial obligations that you’re signing on to for the next 10 to 20 years. Are your father and I comfortable and capable of signing on to the financial obligations? Right. And so it’s really looking at finding an institution that meets the personal, the academic, and the financial fit for the student profile and their family. And I will say there is an institution out there for everybody.

But you need to continue to look until you find the right fit. Trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole. Sorry, I couldn’t remember the shapes there for a moment. Trying trying to make a square peg fit into a round hole when it comes to choosing a college is not going to work. It’s going to result in stopping out.

Amy Glynn (37:22.354)
it is going to result in you wasting time, money, and energy and having disappointment. And so we really need to commit to finding that right fit.

Wes Smith (37:33.009)
I I love your observation. It and it we it could get lost if if we don’t pull this out, but it’s not just about year one of the cost. You have to be able to see year two, three, and four. Like the financial the viability all the way through is important because there are students who get a, you know, a a different price for year one. And that’s not the same price they’re gonna have all all the way through. So that could be a problem. So

I’m glad that you pointed that out, Amy. But to all of our panelists, thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for bringing your expertise in and having this conversation with the Presidents Forum. We look forward to having you all back on topics similar to this and right in your wheelhouse so we can we can provide content to our listeners that’ll be helpful moving forward. So thanks for joining.

How AI Can Remove Friction From the College Admissions Process

How AI Can Remove Friction From the College Admissions Process

by | Jul 17, 2026 | Innovation

How AI Can Remove Friction From the College Admissions Process

The college admissions process should help students move toward opportunity—not create barriers that slow them down.

Ashish Fernando, Founder and CEO of Presidents Forum partner EDMO, believes artificial intelligence can help colleges and universities create a more personalized, efficient admissions experience while allowing staff to spend more time supporting students.

A student experience that inspired a solution

Fernando’s perspective comes from firsthand experience.

As an international student applying to graduate school in the United States, he encountered different application requirements, timelines, interviews, and document requests at every institution. While colleges understood what students needed, delivering the right guidance at the right time proved difficult.

That experience ultimately inspired the creation of EDMO, with a focus on helping institutions reduce friction throughout the admissions process.

Access means more than affordability

Fernando argues that expanding access isn’t simply about lowering tuition.

Students also need timely information, personalized guidance, and a clearer understanding of which institutions and academic programs align with their goals.

EDMO uses AI to analyze prior coursework, credentials, work experience, and career interests to help institutions recommend programs that fit each student’s unique background. Instead of asking students to navigate a complex system alone, AI can help colleges provide individualized guidance from the very beginning.

Let AI handle the paperwork

Admissions offices often serve thousands of prospective students with relatively small teams.

Fernando sees AI as a way to automate repetitive administrative work so admissions professionals can focus on what matters most—building relationships, answering questions, and helping students make informed decisions.

Rather than replacing staff, AI gives existing teams the capacity to provide more personalized service at scale.

AI should strengthen the human experience

Fernando believes admissions is one of the best places for institutions to begin implementing AI because much of the work centers on operational processes.

As AI expands into advising, instruction, and student support, institutions should be thoughtful about preserving the human connections that remain essential to student success. Technology should enhance those relationships—not replace them.

Over time, Fernando expects AI to become foundational infrastructure across higher education, enabling institutions to personalize support throughout the entire student lifecycle.

The bottom line

Artificial intelligence delivers its greatest value when it removes barriers for students.

By reducing friction in admissions and giving staff more time for meaningful interactions, colleges and universities can improve access, strengthen the student experience, and help more learners achieve their educational and career goals.

Transcript

Wes (0:22): Welcome to the President’s Forum Podcast. Today I’m joined in studio by Ashish Fernando. He’s the founder and CEO of Edmo, and the newest collaboration partner of the forum. Edmo is focused on higher education institutions, working with them to improve admissions, enrollment, and student experience through AI. So, Ashish, welcome to the podcast. More importantly, welcome to the forum.

Ashish Fernando (1:07): Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you for the invite.

Wes (1:11): Not all of our listeners know about Edmo. So, like give us a 101. Start like very basic. You started Edmo, and you were looking at certain things that you wanted to change, things you wanted to improve. What are those things? How did this come about?

Ashish Fernando (1:31): Yeah, it’s a great question, and you know, I always want to start by saying I never intended to start an AI company. What I think the intention was, was to solve a human problem in higher ed. And that problem stems from my own background. So, I came to this country 12 years ago to get my MBA, right? And I applied to a lot of schools and and I saw a lot of friction in that process, especially as an international student, where you have all of the challenges of domestic admissions, plus visas and travel, and you’re leaving your family, and…

Wes (2:12): Yeah, that makes sense.

Ashish Fernando (2:13): How do you get a place to stay in a different land? So, there are so many things, and I went through that whole process myself, and I realized there was something that I needed to shift there from… And it didn’t seem like a challenge around, you know, people knowing what’s needed. Like, institutions knowing what’s needed. Institutions precisely know what an international student needs, but it’s a challenge of friction. There’s like, I mean, you most schools, 30,000, 40,000 students admitted, but only admitted. How many of them are applying? More than 100,000. How do you cater to each one, personalize the attention, and get them to do what they want? That’s where I thought, you know, technology could could drive that change. It could help operationally, making it more efficient, frictionless, and that’s kind of the journey from trying to help the student to figure out how to do things to like, oh my god, aha moment. If I’m on the institution side, I can do better. Yeah.

Wes (3:23): So so this like stems from your use case.

Ashish Fernando (3:28): Yeah.

Wes (3:29): You’re out there, you’re thinking this could be so much easier. Give us an example of the friction that you encountered. You’re you’re working on this and you’re like, this is wild. Why do I do this?

Ashish Fernando (3:40): Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I only half joke about it when I say my my Indian mother would, you know, if you asked her still, she would say, “No, he probably should have gone to Yale,” still, even after she sees my 10-year trajectory, right?

Wes (3:55): Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (3:56): Because it’s very societal. Like, you want to go to a high-ranking institution. So, I’m like, fine. I’ll apply to a Yale, I applied to UBC in Canada, again, another prestigious institution in Canada, because I didn’t know if I’ll get a US visa.

Wes (4:08): Right.

Ashish Fernando (4:09): And then I applied to a few that I thought were right for me, right? And one of that was Bentley, which is where I went to school. But, you apply to all of them at the same time, but they respond to you at different times.

Wes (4:23): Right.

Ashish Fernando (4:24): Right? They ask different questions. There’s different documents. Yale had an MBA interview, but Bentley did not. Bentley instead had an interview with a committee that wanted to know what’s my extra extra-curricular.

Wes (4:37): Okay.

Ashish Fernando (4:38): So, in all of that is where I saw there’s there’s there’s a lot of like time gap, friction, lack of understanding as a student of what I need to do. Like, how can I get this across the finish line?

Wes (4:53): So, yeah, this makes sense that, okay, so you’re seeing all of the disparate requests, you’re you’re seeing how inefficient it can be. Did that impact your decision making? Like you’re thinking, I got to hear back from these institutions while I’m still working with this institution and when to I just remember, you know, you got to put a deposit down at some point. You don’t want to do that if you’re not sure you’re going to go to that institution. So, all of those things kind of wrap up into your thinking where, hey, this could be a lot easier.

Ashish Fernando (5:27): Yes, absolutely. You know, like for instance, the last admit I got was from from UBC, right?

Wes (5:35): Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (5:36): It was too late for me. Even if I wanted to go there, I couldn’t because I put my deposit down for another institution. But beyond that, you know, it becomes a question of not just the friction, but also like, you and I talked about access.

Wes (5:51): Yeah. Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (5:52): You know, I always try to think access is not just a a cost issue. Access is also an issue of does information reach me at the right time? Do I know that there’s an institution out there that’s fit for me?

Wes (6:06): Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (6:07): Right? There might be like five schools that, you know, I have let’s say $15,000 in the bank, I could have five institutions. But I don’t know they exist.

Wes (6:16): Right.

Ashish Fernando (6:17): So, that’s that’s the problem I try to solve because I had that problem when I came here.

Wes (6:22): So, you’re on the front line of this right now. And and access is a big issue with the forum. Always looking to improve access. What are you seeing out there right now that you’re that you’re just saying, this this kind of friction or barrier should be unacceptable. We we need to change this in our system. What are you seeing now that that are the big issues?

Ashish Fernando (6:47): So, before we talk about big issues, I’ll tell you what I’m the one thing that I’m seeing that for me is my silver lining.

Wes (6:54): Okay.

Ashish Fernando (6:55): I think we’ve gone from especially domestically, right? If you ask an Indian family, they’re still going to say, “Yeah, my kid needs to go to Harvard,” right? But I think domestically we’ve shifted in terms of how we think of education and access to it. And you you see the, you know, the advent of the big onlines and they’re starting to do well and you actually, I mean, some of them are are our customers, and when I see that, okay, now I can actually, I’m a single mom, I don’t have enough money to go to even, you let’s say, the U, right? But but I can do this online while I’m doing my job. So, not just offset my cost of education, but also fend for my family, right, feed my child.

Wes (7:43): Which is a reality that most people deal with.

Ashish Fernando (7:45): Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Wes (7:46): They they really have to deal with this.

Ashish Fernando (7:48): Most people, including me, we wake up late to say, “Oh my god, I should have done this,” and it’s like you’re five years late, right?

Wes (7:55): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (7:56): And so so I think, that’s my silver line. Like, I did I did my undergrad and my masters in biotech. And nowhere close to doing anything in biotech, right? Running tech because I realized where my my mojo is, and where I think I can contribute more to society. But now coming to where I see some of that that challenge, right? So, um yeah, this is the silver lining and and things are happening well. I feel uh I feel what students are lacking is not just, “Oh, okay, I I need this education,” but what they’re lacking is an entire end-to-end funnel to say, “Okay, what do you want to achieve in the end, and then play that back, reverse engineer it,” because so many times we’ll have students go through an entire education and be like, “Yeah, I had $15,000, now I went through my bachelor’s degree, but you know what, it’s not what I want.”

Wes (8:53): Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (8:54): Yeah, so it’s education is not trying to solve access to learning. It’s actually trying to solve access to livelihood.

Wes (9:02): Agreed. Yeah, I mean, well, 90 plus percent of the reason people go to school is that the the outcome, right? Being able to provide for your family or being able to be actively engaged in the workforce. So, I’m hearing you say that needs to be the focus, work back from that, make decisions that are informed by where you want to be there.

Ashish Fernando (9:29): Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Wes (9:31): I I couldn’t agree more. I we we had this conversation, you know, before we started rolling, but the conversation about brand in in higher ed and it seems to be, you know, alive and well, that brand bias is out there. You see rankings all the time, you see, but you also see the cost for the major, you know, major educational brands are significant. They’re they’re barriers for for a lot of people. And now we have all these alternatives and I still see people out there complaining after the fact that it costs so much to do X, Y, or Z. But as a consumer, like you have more options than just, you know, just the high brand, you know, the high dollar. It’s kind of an interesting like, we’re in an interesting spot now where we can make different decisions. Everybody has that information. We, it could be better, but people have that information. Does Edmo have any role in in that access? And how would you see what you’re trying to do as kind of leveling that playing field for institutions and for students?

Ashish Fernando (10:55): Yeah, it’s a great question. So, you know, when we started we were on the student side, right? We were like, okay, we’ll help one student at a time. That actually used to be my like common lingo. I would always say we’re going to do this one student at a time.

Wes (11:08): Right.

Ashish Fernando (11:09): And we’re going to say, okay, you’re one student. What do you need, okay, financially, like for your career, like where where your skill sets lie. You may want to be a pilot, but do you think you can garner the skills to be a pilot? Maybe you’d be more successful being somebody else. So, that’s where I started.

Wes (11:27): Okay.

Ashish Fernando (11:28): In the process, we actually put together a a gold standard data of every institution, not just in America, but Canada and Australia and across the world, all of the programs they have to offer, the courses within those programs, and what they all mean and what they all do, right? So, what we have is now this core database…

Wes (11:49): Okay.

Ashish Fernando (11:50): …of everything. So, what what that helps us do today, I’ll just fast forward, like we were helping students so we were gathering all this information, but today, I can sit on an institution side and let’s say, you know, I’m working with a university here, right? And there’s a student coming in saying, “I went to this school, I dropped out, and then I went there and I dropped out, and then I went worked here for a year and I dropped out. Can I do something? Like, can you help me?” Now my system has the ability to say, “Okay, I know exactly what you did at the school you went to and dropped out. So, I know partly what you did there. I know partly what you did at school B.” And I can put that all together, and instead of a human having to spend 5 days, which we don’t have the time for. I mean, some of our institutions recruit more than 150,000 students. How big can your team be to be like one… So, with a machine, I can now look at that student personally and say, “Yeah, based on what you’ve gone through, your successes, failures, certificates, competencies, and skills, here’s the right fit program for you at my institution, and here’s what you should do and here’s your trajectory.” And that’s where we’re really seeing the value of AI coming.

Wes (13:14): Yeah, everybody’s talking about AI, right? Everybody everybody’s like, “Oh, yeah, we use AI. We’re doing this, we’re doing that.” That seems like a really productive use of AI. You’re you’re getting compiling this information and using it to give really good direction to consumers.

Ashish Fernando (13:30): Yes.

Wes (13:31): Um, we we can get it right there. I’m interested in, are there places where you like ways that we talk about it right now where we get AI wrong? I’m just like looking for the, what’s how are we using it right, how are we using it wrong?

Ashish Fernando (13:44): For sure. You know, um and I talk to presidents and and teams, like C-levels, and we, I always like to have wear a consultative hat. I’m like, forget about what my product does, right?

Wes (13:57): Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (13:58): Can we talk about where the friction is? And you know, you’ll constantly see, not just in higher ed, but everywhere, even us as consumers, we think of AI as one-off products that will solve a problem.

Wes (14:12): Right. Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (14:14): Right? And where I like institutions to go is in the direction of AI is like cloud. You don’t say, “Oh, I need a chatbot and that’s AI.” Today, that’s how we talk, but AI is infrastructure. You know, it’s like cloud. There used to be a day when we’d be like, “Oh, we got to move to the cloud.” Today, it is the standard. Right. We don’t set a data center in at the institution. You go, if you build anything, you build it on the cloud.

Wes (14:38): Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (14:39): That’s how AI is going to be 5 years from now. It’s the infrastructure. Anything you build for your institution, be it in admissions, instruction, career, you got to think of how do I build this in a way in which a machine can just eat up all this information and tell me, on a personalized basis for each student, what’s the right direction. Be it for a lea- for a prospective student of like, what’s the right direction for them to get admitted,

Wes (15:06): Right.

Ashish Fernando (15:07): for an admitted student, what’s the right path to graduate for successful outcomes,

Wes (15:11): Right.

Ashish Fernando (15:12): and then for a graduate, what’s the right path to a job and become a successful alumni alum who gives back, right? So, that whole thing today is very manual for us. But think of like retail or automobile and automotive sectors, they’re all automated. Like they can, so, that’s where I’m trying to make a difference is, uh and and I picked admissions specifically, and there’s a reason for that. Why am I not saying let’s automate everything, right? Because I still have to get an answer to one important question about AI, which is, in admissions, it’s mostly operational friction, right? The students at home, right, staff and then there’s a lot of like paperwork and blah, and you can fix that.

Wes (15:58): Yeah, that makes sense.

Ashish Fernando (15:59): But when it comes to post-admission, will AI hamper the human-to-human connection in any way, is a big question I always try to answer because if you put AI everywhere, what’s the meaning in that for us humans, you know? So, like, it’s really hard question to…

Wes (16:15): There’s a little more risk post-admission.

Ashish Fernando (16:17): There is a little more risk, yeah.

Wes (16:19): Pre-admission, those were designed to be automated. I mean, they’re ready. It’s fertile soil to say, okay, we don’t need to keep hiring to manage on these particular tasks. We just need to leverage technology in a way that allows us to do it better and faster.

Ashish Fernando (16:41): Better, faster, and all the people who are there, they can do a a much better job, other things, maybe post-admission, or maybe during admission, but manage the human-to-human connection.

Wes (16:53): This this is clearly like something we talk about all the time in AI now. And that is, and and you’re seeing new cycles of this. Um, people saying, well, the the job loss because of AI, the like, what’s what’s going to happen to all these people? But to your point, these people are going to be used in ways that are more helpful within the system. It doesn’t mean you have to you don’t have to cut jobs, you have to cut job duties.

Ashish Fernando (17:21): 100%.

Wes (17:22): So, you can still focus on, hey, engage with the students, work on mentoring, work on, um, on on the teaching side, the instructor side, but you just know exactly who and when you need to instruct or help them with these decisions as opposed to, you know, that’s where you get into personalized education. You get like, we know personally what this person needs.

Ashish Fernando (17:49): Yes. Yeah, in the end, it’s the value for the customer, right? Bank of America, for example, like look at banking as an analogy because they’ve automated a lot of stuff. We do all of our banking on our phones,

Wes (18:00): Right.

Ashish Fernando (18:01): including depositing checks, which is kind of crazy. But, they went from, they’re almost still the same head count, roughly.

Wes (18:08): Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (18:09): But, they went from being everything brick and mortar. You went in and you did everything at the single window, uh you know, deposited money, talked to a teller. Today, it’s all online, but that doesn’t mean people have lost their jobs in banking, you know, and it’s the same, it’s just the nature of, in the end, you got to focus on the customer.

Wes (18:29): Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (18:30): Does my banking customer wants stuff on their hands, like palm of their hand? Yes. With education, it’s the same.

Wes (18:36): From a communication standpoint, I always thought it was awkward and weird that AI leaders were always talking about a massive job loss coming. It just doesn’t make sense to me, especially in education.

Ashish Fernando (18:48): Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Wes (18:49): Like, especially where uniquely human touches are highly impactful. And it just it just means that, I mean, the the things that are are like, if you just shrink it to the most basic level, you know, the things that teachers do in the US with regard to an elementary school.

Ashish Fernando (19:10): Yeah.

Wes (19:11): It’s so most of it’s not teaching. Most of it is administrative. Most of it is, I mean, they’re doing so much work that is not what they could be doing and spending that time. And then, you know, that just scales on every different, you know, secondary and and then you get to, you know, post-secondary, you get to your higher ed stuff that we don’t, you don’t need people looking at gathering paperwork on admissions.

Ashish Fernando (19:39): No. Yes.

Wes (19:40): It’s not inherently the strength of the human.

Ashish Fernando (19:43): No, it’s not. Yeah, it’s like we don’t have to we don’t have to do that. We can we can figure out better ways, more effective ways to get all that information and then we can spend time on utilizing that information, what it means on how to impact the student.

Ashish Fernando (19:56): And how, absolutely. And here’s the irony of it, right? Our average institution, across the board, actually has a lot more students who are like roughly 8,000 to 10,000 students, and you look at the admissions office, five people.

Wes (20:13): Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Ashish Fernando (20:14): Right? So, like, what how are they going to lose their jobs? There’s going to be enough for five people to do. The challenge they’re trying to solve is actually not how to safeguard five jobs, but it’s like, how do I serve 10,000 applicants and students with five people? Much…

Wes (20:29): In a in a in a much better way.

Ashish Fernando (20:31): In a much better way because we’re strapped for budgets, like higher ed budget cuts and whatever, like that have happened. Now, those five people with Edmo’s AI can actually do so much more for those 10,000. Like, that’s kind of how how I look at it.

Wes (20:44): Yeah, that makes sense. It makes sense that I like your reasoning for the focus on admissions. Like, that’s that’s the most fertile area. It’s ready to it’s ready to, you know, be impacted by technology and be more efficient. Post-admission is a little bit more tricky.

Ashish Fernando (20:59): Got to think about it, yeah.

Wes (21:00): You got to figure that out. Um, okay, so, new partner with the President’s Forum, we’re glad to have you. Tell me what, um, what can we accomplish together? What are your hopes that that Edmo and the forum can work on together?

Ashish Fernando (21:16): Yeah, you know, I, um, people like us who when we’re trying to like bring some change where we say, you know, um, oh, I think here’s a human problem that I want to solve, usually most of us are reactive. Right. And so, so I have a lot of conversation where it’s react like, oh, other verticals are deploying AI and so let’s deploy AI. I think with the President’s Forum that shifts from being people who are reactive to what’s happening in the industry,

Wes (21:46): Yeah.

Ashish Fernando (21:47): and and and making it, you know, kind of as a reaction to change versus being the change, right? These are individuals who will like sit there and be like, what do we need to do to bring that change? Therefore, what do we do for policy and and I think they’re just sitting at that table and being able to say, you guys understand the mission of the higher ed institution, the mission for the student. Uh, I think technology can be a huge driver, and so I want to just be able to say, here’s what I think tech can do, and then have that marriage of like, yeah, we know the mission, and plus here’s some tech and, yeah, that’s my goal.

Wes (22:31): I love that. The the idea of, these presidents have really great vision on what the future education system needs to look like.

Ashish Fernando (22:40): Yeah.

Wes (22:41): And what they don’t have all the time is, um, the EdTech to, now don’t get me wrong, I mean, huge portions of budgets are now EdTech.

Ashish Fernando (22:51): Going to tech, yeah.

Wes (22:52): But, I’ve been around long enough in higher education to understand that EdTech is the most complicated area of, you know, modern day higher education.

Ashish Fernando (23:02): For sure.

Wes (23:03): And there’s a lot of risk in in moving in specific ideas and projects. Having partners that are already moving in that direction, in in that space, and can share kind of the visioning that the presidents have as a starting point, and then, and then be the builders,

Ashish Fernando (23:25): Mhm.

Wes (23:26): to me, that’s like an ideal marriage of collaboration partners and presidents saying, okay, we’re going to work on this together.

Ashish Fernando (23:31): Yeah, well said. It’s, yeah, you, it’s thinkers, movers, and builders. And yeah, like, being on the build side, yeah, that’s that’s that’s our bread and butter. You know, it’s…

Wes (23:44): Yeah, and that’s and that’s really what what these presidents and these institutions need now is partners that are saying, let us take this incredible technology, let us apply it in ways and then perfect it with you. Like, let’s partner on these things and move it together.

Ashish Fernando (24:02): Yes. Your best business analyst is your customer. That’s, you know, and so every time we build we’re like, you know, our teams will sit and be like, oh my god, Ashish, look at this proof of concept, looks great. Well, did you talk to a customer? If not, then I’m not even looking at it, right? So, just being here to just kind of understand all of that and just say, let’s build in the direction that we as a combined unit think is is the right direction. I think we’ll move, not just us fast, but also all of these institutions, presidents. Yeah. Yeah, I’m pretty excited for it.

Wes (24:37): Agreed.  I think that’s one of the strengths that the forum has is our partners are experts in different areas, especially in the tech world.

Ashish Fernando (25:09): Mhm, yeah.

Wes (25:10): And being able to have that expertise on hand to give counsel, advice, thinking, best thinking, to presidents is really valuable for us. So, we’re looking forward to doing that.

Ashish Fernando (25:21): Absolutely. Same here. Thank you for having me.

Wes (25:23): Thanks thanks for joining us.

How UMGC’s First Year Experience Program Unlocks Learner Potential

How UMGC’s First Year Experience Program Unlocks Learner Potential

by | Jul 15, 2026 | Innovation, Underserved Communities

By Nancy Trojanowski, EdD, Chair, First Year Experience, UMGC

At University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC), student success begins with designing every touchpoint around the realities of adult learners balancing careers, families, military service, and education. Through its evolving First Year Experience (FYE), UMGC is advancing a learner-centered model that reduces friction, strengthens belonging, and accelerates progress from enrollment to completion.

“As higher education continues to evolve, our responsibility is to meet learners where they are, with flexible pathways, proactive support, and clear, transparent guidance,” said UMGC President Gregory W. Fowler, PhD. “Our innovative First Year Experience reflects that commitment, helping students build confidence early and stay on a path to achieving their goals.”

Nancy Trojanowski, EdD, department chair of the First Year Experience (FYE), explains how.

One of the first steps on the FYE journey is to enroll in a Program and Career Exploration (PACE) course. How have these courses evolved?

We strongly encourage degree-seeking undergraduates to complete PACE in their first term to ensure a strong foundation for success. When I arrived in 2023, it was evident that we did not have enough instructors. Teaching novice learners requires a particular skill set and a high-touch disposition. During my first year, we hired approximately 180 adjunct faculty members, and I also taught the course myself.

We realize that one size does not fit all. We’ve increased the offerings to suit the unique paths that students take, with tailored PACE sections for transfer students, English Language Learners, and six disciplines: Business, Communication and Humanities, Multidisciplinary Studies, Public Safety, Health and Sciences, and Technology.

We’ve also built a lot of dashboards and systems that provide real-time feedback for teachers, which enable us to move the needle before the session ends. We can take action in the moment, which has been really helpful.

How did an InScribe community grow from the PACE courses?

We noticed that belonging was a gap. In a primarily online institution, it was a big challenge. So, we piloted a PACE course community using the InScribe digital community platform. Learners needed a space to chat with peers, ask questions, and make connections. It was so successful that the same platform is now used for the UMGC student community and many clubs and organizations.

How has that community changed since the pilot?

In the beginning, we’d have university administrators present in the discussions, and we heard from a lot of students that that was intimidating. Students are there because they want to chat with other students. So we hired peer leaders—fellow students who post content, respond to questions, do live events—and they are phenomenal. They might have a live event on a subject like time management, or just “ask me anything.” We also run weekly live events, in collaboration with our tutoring services, writing center, office of student success, and PACE faculty.

What does the first year experience look like at UMGC?

We do a few things that are unique. One of them is an instructor connection, a one-on-one meeting that instructors have with each student. It builds that relationship, answers questions, and gets new learners over the fear of talking to someone.

We also created an assignment where students talk to their Success Network Partner—success coach, military education coordinator, advisor, or program coordinator.

We also reinvented Virtual Orientation to focus on what students need in their first 30 days to be successful—the basic tenets. And we’ve worked to customize that in a way that’s seamless for students. For example, if they are military and in a graduate program, they’ll see content that fits with that. We’re creating consistency, but at the same time, offering the customization and individualization students need without them having to think about it.

What do you find is the biggest challenge new students face?

One of the things we heard frequently in our new student surveys is that they have low confidence in their ability to master the technological aspects of online learning. We provided that feedback data to the Tutoring Services & Resources office, and they hired classroom technology tutors who are trained to help students master that aspect. We’re also working to create a new PACE offering that builds that technology-readiness piece right in.

With PACE and FYE morphing so quickly, how do teachers stay current?

We have around 600 adjunct faculty teaching PACE, so it’s a large volume, and while we can’t closely monitor what’s happening in 600 different sections, we can use our real-time dashboards to look at faculty performance and engagement. And then we have faculty coaches who have taught the course before and can offer feedback; they have been instrumental in helping us raise the bar. We also work closely with the Office of Student Success and our Digital Student Experience team to understand the student perspective with the hope of initiating proactive support.

Have you found any trends around when students are most likely to be successful?

“Happy Path” is a strategy that promotes taking PACE as the first course and two classes in Session I and two in Session III. Students who do this seem to hit the sweet spot. A lot of students, especially just starting out, don’t realize that at UMGC, session II straddles both session I and III. They can get overwhelmed pretty quickly. Encouraging students to follow the Happy Path strategy, along with providing course suggestions, yields higher student success and a faster path to graduation.