Category: Access & Inclusion

Higher education has long debated its role in character development. Religious schools, secure in their subjectivity, have made producing people of good character part of their core mission. But for public universities serving diverse populations, the entire concept can be fraught, starting with the language itself. How are we defining character? And should values and principles be part of a student’s education? 

Arizona State University appears to have threaded the needle on character education with an initiative called “Principled Innovation” – a framework for ethical decision-making that can be used by individuals or in community settings. It is based on “pro-social” values that lead to defendable outcomes like “what’s good for humanity” without being overly prescriptive. Under the leadership of President Michael Crow, ASU has added Principled Innovation to the list of design aspirations that drive the university, calling it “the ability to create change guided by values and ethical understanding.”

Ted Cross is ASU’s Executive Director of University Affairs and Crow’s point person for the roll-out of Principled Innovation. He says character education is best understood as a reflective process that enables students to flourish – in a way that is flexible and individualized.

“We want people to improve themselves,” said Cross. “Positive psychology has a take on that; philosophy has its own angle. We packaged all of that into an inter-disciplinary approach that helps faculty, staff, and students ground decisions and actions in values and character.”

Informed by the Jubilee Centre’s Framework for Character Education in Schools at the University of Birmingham, Principled Innovation includes four domains of practice – Moral, Civic, Performance, and Intellectual – each of which encompass certain character “assets” or virtues meant to guide one’s ability to create positive change in the world. ASU’s institutional commitment is expressed through Principled Innovation as a guiding principle, while the practice of Principled Innovation is supported through a pedagogical approach, engaging tools and resources, communities of practice, and curricular and co-curricular activities. 

Building the Framework

The design lab for Principled Innovation was ASU’s Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College. In 2017, the dean of the college, Carol Basile, was concerned by the state of K-12 education systems and decided to change things from the inside out – through addressing the education workforce and teacher and leader preparation. She came to the conclusion that to do so, character education needed to be included. To understand how, she enlisted Cristy Guleserian, a colleague at the college who is now its Executive Director of Principled Innovation. 

“We asked ourselves, ‘What could it mean for a college of education at a public university to integrate a character education framework into the systems of teacher and leader preparation?’ said Guleserian. “In having these conversations, we realized it couldn’t just be integrated into a curriculum to teach future educators about character. It had to be our approach to everything we do and something that we embraced as a college community.” 

With this as their north star, Guleserian and her team worked intentionally with faculty, staff, students, and community partners and eventually incorporated the practices and assets of what would become Principled Innovation into everything they did, from fostering culture and environments to teaching, advising, and student services. But getting to an agreed-upon understanding of what all this would look like involved cultivating authentic relationships through a series of one-on-one discussions and all-college design sessions – a process Guleserian described as equal parts invigorating and challenging.  

“There was a lot of skepticism at first – a lot of questions about whose character, whose values, and whose virtues we were talking about. I remember spending about an hour going back and forth about one word,” she said.

In one of the sessions, a participant offered what would be a break-through in the log jam. “We need to ‘ASU-ize’ this,” he said. The group understood him to mean “co-create” a concept that more explicitly reflected ASU’s diverse community and well-publicized mission.  

“We recognized that innovation is at the core of what we do here at ASU and our charter holds us responsible for being inclusive for the well-being of the communities we serve. So the framing of Principled Innovation was born from that shared purpose,” said Guleserian.

The framework is intentionally flexible. In an essay for the book The Necessity of Character, ASU President Michael Crow and Ted Cross write, “By refusing to adhere to a single philosophical or religious worldview, ASU has made room for students to draw on their different backgrounds as they engage with our character education initiatives. Only by remaining flexible in this way have we been able to secure ‘buy-in’ across the university.”

At a research university known for outside the box thinking, Crow has made innovation part of ASU’s nomenclature. But the decision to include it in the title was more than just good branding. Principled Innovation proposes the notion that “just because you can innovate, doesn’t mean you should,” reflecting a growing national movement to infuse character into the critical actions of scientists and others in the innovation community.    

When asked if there could be “Unprincipled Innovation,” Cross said “definitely.” 

“It’s not enough to be innovative if you don’t innovate with purpose and principle. It’s not enough to help people learn how to make a good living if we’re not helping them learn how to live good lives, whatever that means to them,” he said. 

“It’s not enough to be innovative if you don’t innovate with purpose and principle. It’s not enough to help people learn how to make a good living if we’re not helping them learn how to live good lives.”

Principled Innovation in Practice

Building on the work of Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College (now called College for Teaching and Learning Innovation), Principled Innovation is currently practiced in ten colleges at ASU, including the W. P. Carey School of Business and the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions, as well as the Office of the Provost and Educational Outreach and Student Services. All of this work uses the framework and assets for reflective practices and community practice that lead to positive change.  

“The framework asks, ‘What are some of the possible intended or unintended outcomes of the decisions we make and how can we mitigate some of the possible negative consequences before we take action?’” said Guleserian.

A good indication of how the framework may influence ASU’s pedagogy is the launch of the Principled Innovation Academy, which is housed in University College. The curricular program involving human-centered problem-solving methods and team pitch competitions has already engaged with 750 students.  

Cross calls the program “shark tank meets design thinking meets character education,” where students create and pitch ideas using the Principled Innovation framework. Last year’s winner was a career recommendation engine for students that works by asking them questions like, “What are your work values? What are your personal values? And how would that map to your career?” 

It is clear that the careful work that went into developing Principled Innovation at ASU helped propel it from a concept within one school to a major design principle for the entire university. But for advocates like Cross and Guleserian, the buy-in it has received at the country’s largest public university says something about the times we are in. 

“The U.S. is so deeply divided that we are talking past each other,” said Cross. “There’s a lot of anger and aggression and mistrust. But if we can engage multiple perspectives in the way we design and create things, the way we teach and collaborate, it helps us to develop environments of trust and belonging.”

When Guillermo Creamer got an unpaid internship in the office of the DC mayor a decade ago, he was thrilled. He found a live-in nanny position that would provide housing and took babysitting gigs on the weekend to pay for food and metro fares.

There was just one problem: the job had a dress code, and Creamer only had one suit – a tannish-green number that was neutral enough, but stood out among the blacks and blues. He had the suit dry cleaned often – at no small expense – but eventually a colleague took notice and called him out for wearing it every day.

“That was such an embarrassing day,” recalled Creamer, who now works as director of residential programs at a nonprofit in Worcester, Massachusetts, where he grew up, the son of South American immigrants.

The experience, and a subsequent unpaid internship in the US House of Representatives, led Creamer to co-found Pay Our Interns, a nonprofit with a mission to end unpaid internships, and the tagline “Experience Doesn’t Pay the bills.”

For Creamer, the work was personal. He has a younger sister and never wanted her to go through what he went through – to be ridiculed for not having proper business attire, he said.

But his opposition to unpaid internships is also philosophical. Requiring interns to work for free puts poorer college students, who often have to work to pay for college, at a disadvantage over wealthier ones, who tend to have family resources to fall back on, Creamer and other critics of the practice argue. Those who can’t forgo a paycheck (or cobble together side gigs, like Creamer) can miss out an internship that could set them on a path to financial stability.

“We want to create an equitable workforce pipeline, and internships are the beginning of that pipeline,” Creamer said.

Pay Our Interns decided to start with the Congressional internship program, arguing that a program that prepares future political leaders should be accessible to all students. It tailored its messaging to each political party, telling Democratic lawmakers that paying interns would help them diversity their workforce, and Republican ones that it would provide opportunity to members of the working class.  

“We want to create an equitable workforce pipeline, and internships are the beginning of that pipeline.”

The group had some success, convincing Congress and the White House to allocate money to pay their interns. It hoped that other employers would follow Washington’s lead.

Is Unpaid Unfair to Students?

Yet ten years after Creamer was shamed over his single suit, roughly one third of internships remain unpaid, with roughly one million students working for free each year, studies suggest. Millions more say they want an internship, but don’t get one, due to barriers such as insufficient supply, inadequate pay or the competing demands of work and school.

These statistics matter because participating in an internship – especially a paid one – has been shown to lead to stronger labor-market outcomes. Students who have an internship in college are less likely to be unemployed or underemployed five years after graduation than students who don’t, studies show. Both paid and unpaid interns receive more job offers, but paid interns get more, and have higher starting salaries, too.

Given the exclusionary nature of unpaid internships, some colleges have refused to include them in their job listings. Some have endorsed a recent campaign by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, dubbed “Unpaid is Unfair,” that calls on Congress to pass legislation requiring that internships be paid.

“It’s a way to democratize access to internships,” said Mary Gatta, the association’s director of research and public policy.

But not everyone is convinced that unpaid internships should be abolished. Those who argue for preserving them say that students are “paid in experience,” and that interns should be willing to exchange their labor for training and professional connections. They point out that some employers can’t afford to pay their interns and warn that ordering them to do so will cause some to cancel their internships altogether, deepening the existing shortage.

“It’s a terrible idea,” said Bryan Caplan, a professor of economics at George Mason University. “You’re cutting out one of the main ways people get training.”

Caplan sees great hypocrisy in colleges’ charging students for classes he considers pointless, while condemning companies for providing training for free.       “There’s a massive double standard,” he said. “Here at least students learn real stuff and they don’t even have to pay for it.”

Even some proponents of paying interns say it would be a mistake to outlaw unpaid internships as long as accreditors and licensing agencies require students in certain professional programs – like psychology and social work – to complete practicum training to graduate.

“While ethically on the right track, we shouldn’t even consider banning them until we figure out how to replace those unpaid positions,” said Matthew T. Hora, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and founding director of the Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions.

Hora, who has conducted extensive research on unpaid internships, says he’s long been frustrated by colleges’ “unbridled embrace” of internships, and wishes they’d stop pushing them so hard.

“There just aren’t enough positions available and they’re out of reach of the vast majority of students,” he said.

NACE acknowledges that some employers aren’t in a position to pay their interns, and suggests that policy makers provide financial and other support to smaller for-profit, and nonprofit organizations. In the meantime, Gatta recommends that colleges work with community groups and chambers of commerce to identify funds that could support students with unpaid internships, such as foundation grants or federal work study dollars.

The Rewards and Challenges of Internship

The benefits of internships for both students and employers are well documented. By taking part in an internship, students gain insight into potential career paths, develop industry-specific skills, and build valuable professional networks. The practical, hands-on, experience gives them an edge in the job market – and the confidence and competencies they’ll need to succeed in it.

For employers, internships are a way to recruit and retain early-career talent. NACE’s annual survey of employers has consistently found that more than half of interns convert to full-time employees and that three quarters of those converts are still with the organization after a year, compared to just over half of non-intern employees.

Colleges confronting questions about their value can also benefit from student internships, research by the Strada Education Foundation suggests. It found that four-year college graduates who complete work-based learning are more likely to say their education helped them achieve their goals and was worth the cost.

Surveys show that students are well aware of the rewards associated with an internship. In fact, seventy percent of freshmen say they plan to take one. Yet fewer than half of students complete one by the end of senior year, and less than a quarter find a paid one, Strada’s research shows.

In 2023, an estimated 3.6 million students completed internships, but another 4.6 million wanted an internship and didn’t get one, according to the Business Higher-Education Forum.

That gap is at least partly due to the challenges employers face in creating and sustaining internships. These include not having appropriate work for interns or lacking the staff to supervise them, the Forum’s interviews with employers show.

Employers may also question whether an internship will provide a good return on their investment, said Nicole Smith, research professor and chief economist at the Center on Education and the Workforce, at Georgetown University. 

“There’s a cost in terms of the personnel and time invested, and you don’t know if the person will stay with the firm,” Smith said.

Given that uncertainty, employers may wonder “Am I training for me, or for my competitor?” Smith said.      

The available internship slots aren’t evenly distributed, either. Studies by NACE have found that women, Black, Hispanic and first-generation students are underrepresented in paid internships, while white, male and continuing generation students are overrepresented. There’s some evidence that students of color are over-represented in unpaid internships, though Hora cautions that it’s far from definitive.

The reasons for these disparities aren’t entirely understood, but there are a few prominent theories.

One popular explanation is that Black, Hispanic and first-generation students are more likely than other demographic groups to be classified as “low-income,” and can’t afford to give up a steady job for a short-term internship – even a paid one. In other words, they’re not applying in equal numbers.

 Another possibility is that first-generation students and students of color have less of the “social capital” needed to secure internships, which are frequently advertised through “whisper networks.”

And a third theory is that students of color and women are less likely to be paid because they cluster in majors associated with government and the non-profit sector, where paid internships are rarer.

Racial and gender gaps in internship participation may also reflect employers’ recruiting practices. If companies are drawing candidates from colleges that disproportionately enroll wealthier and white students, they’re less likely to end up with a racially- and socio-economically diverse applicant pool.

Yet even as students struggle to secure internships,  one in three employers say some of their slots are going unfilled.

That disconnect may be due to poor marketing on the part of employers, or to a mismatch between what companies are seeking and what students have to offer. In the Business Higher Education Forum’s interviews with employers, some companies said they couldn’t find candidates with the qualifications they wanted, according to Candace Williams, its director of regional initiatives.

Bringing the Bargaining Power         

So what can be done to broaden access to internships – and to paid internships, in particular?

Requiring employers to pay their interns, as NACE and others have proposed, could help diversify the applicant pool, making internships possible for more low-income students.

But with Trump and other business-friendly Republicans on the verge of controlling both the White House and Congress, a ban on unpaid internships isn’t likely to pass anytime soon.

Meanwhile, a growing number of colleges are setting aside funds for stipends to support students in unpaid internships. A recent survey by NACE found that more than a third of institutions now offer such stipends.

Karen Garcia, a junior at the University of Wisconsin whose family immigrated to the US from Mexico six years ago, used the $1,000 she received through her college’s “SuccessWorks” program to buy a coat and dressier shoes for her summer 2024 internship at the Department of Corrections. The money also helped cover gas for the car she used to get to the job, where she helped out on cases involving Spanish speakers. Without the grant, she said, “I would have had to lean on my parents, and they don’t earn that much money.”

Yet competition for colleges’ limited funds can be fierce, and only two percent of colleges provide the aid for any or all unpaid internships, the survey found. And while subsidy programs are an efficient way to get money to students, they often aren’t sustainable, especially if they rely on grants or alumni donations.

Recognizing this, some colleges are exerting pressure on employers to pay their interns, threatening to drop their “preferred employer” status, said Laura Love, who leads the work-based learning agenda at Strada.

“Colleges may have more bargaining power and influence than they think,” Love said.

At George Mason University, Saskia Campbell, executive director of university career services, uses data to persuade employers to pay her students. She shows them how pay increases the quality and diversity of the applicant pool and points to what competitors are paying their interns. She tells them they’ll get “more dedication and focus” from their interns if they’re not juggling a paid job on the side.

While some employers seem swayed by her descriptions of the financial strain students are under, “a lot of times it requires making the business case for them,” Campbell said.

If an employer says they don’t have the budget to pay their interns, she’ll push for “something is better than nothing.”

Campbell says many employers mistakenly assume that academic credit is a reasonable alternative to pay. They don’t always register that “not only are they not getting paid – they’re actually paying for the experience.”

Still, the work of expanding paid internship can’t fall solely on colleges. Among the think tanks and advocacy groups that promote internships there’s a consensus that it will take employers, government, and colleges working together to grow the field. And achieving such collaboration won’t be easy, said Su Jin Jez, CEO of California Competes, which has conducted interviews with both colleges and employers.

Though all three parties value internships, they value it for different reasons, she said. Colleges may think that employers will respond to arguments that internships will diversify their workforce, for example, when they’re really just interested in sourcing the top entry-level talent.

That “misalignment in values,” mirrors differences in structure and culture that can make cooperation difficult, Jez said.

Moving beyond the Traditional Model

As companies and colleges navigate these challenges, they’re also experimenting with alternatives to the traditional internship model.

Among the innovations that have taken root are “micro-internships” –  short-term, paid assignments that provide many of the benefits of regular internships without the long-term commitment.

Micro-internships function as sort of speed-dating for students and employers, allowing each party to see if the other is a good match, said Jeffrey Moss, CEO of Parker Dewey, which pioneered the approach a decade ago. The company has partnerships with 800 colleges, he said.

Moss believes micro-internships level the playing field, allowing students who might not have family connections, a 4.0 GPA, or an elite-college pedigree the chance to prove themselves to a prospective employer. Their short-term nature also makes them a way for students to try out different professions, to find one that brings them a sense of purpose.

At the same time, colleges are finding ways to make on-campus work more meaningful. Under one new program, students working in on-campus jobs at The University of New Hampshire can opt into a professional development program that offers regular meetings with a supervisor and the opportunity to earn micro-credentials in skills like communication and leadership.

Gretchen Heaton, associate vice provost of career and professional success and high-impact practices, said the program teaches students to articulate the skills they’ve gained through on-campus employment.

“Students often believe that unless it’s a ‘real job,’ it shouldn’t go on the resume,” Heaton said. “This is a way for students to talk about value in a way employers will understand.”

At Clemson University, the longstanding University Professional Internship and Co-op (UPIC) program matches students with paid positions submitted by faculty and staff, then links their work to a series of career competencies.

The program not only increases students’ odds of having a job when they graduate, but also aids in retention, according to O’Neil B. Burton, executive director of Clemson’s Center for Career and Professional Development.

“Our first-gen and Pell-eligible students don’t have to take a waitressing jobs or clerk at a mini mart. They can work on campus for somebody who recognizes that their class work comes first,” Burton said. “That can make the difference between being able to stay in school and persist to graduation and having to drop out and work.”

Guillermo Creamer, for his part, never finished college. He dropped out of American University a year shy of graduating because he couldn’t manage the tuition, he said. Pay Our Interns, the organization he helped create in 2016, has been dormant since its co-founder and executive director Carlos Mark Vera stepped down a little over a year ago.

Creamer said funders have shifted their attention away from diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives as opposition to DEI continues its march on higher education. For now, he believes the best place for Pay Our Interns to be is on the sidelines, monitoring the moves of the incoming administration.

But Creamer said he and his organization haven’t given up on ending unpaid internships and will spring into action if anything threatens the gains they’ve made so far.

“You can’t pay the rent with ‘experience,’” said Creamer. “Unpaid internships are an inequitable injustice.”

Ana Mari Cauce has been president of the University of Washington for nine years. During that period, she has steered the public research university through rising rates of mental health issues among college students, a global pandemic, student protests over war and injustice, and declining public faith in higher education. But while these challenges have made many higher education leaders justifiably reticent, Cauce remains forthcoming and remarkably clear.  

In an interview in her office on the Seattle campus, Cauce considers a host of questions within a context drawn from research as well as her own experiences in life. She weaves stories about her family, her early career, and her own education through serious topics like free speech, DEI and careerism in higher education. In doing so, she demonstrates the important skill of learning one’s truth, which has earned her a reputation for being the real deal.

Cauce believes guaranteeing free tuition relieves a psychological barrier for students and families who are fearful of “sticker shock” and the debt students incur as a result. In addition to free tuition, most Husky Promise students receive additional aid to cover cost of attendance, including housing, transportation, and books. However, none are offered aid to cover the full cost of all expenses and are responsible for some costs, although they can be covered through jobs, which can be provided on campus. Cauce says it helps with retention because students have skin in the game and is an important message for taxpayers who support the school.

Low-income students also have a host of supports at UW from basic needs to academic advising. Cauce is adamant that getting in is not enough. “We are serving a class of students that weren’t making it to the university, and they need more help,” she said. The support is paying off. When asked what she is most proud of at UW, Cauce mentions closing the graduation gap. There is very little difference between the school’s Pell-eligible and non-Pell-eligible 6-year graduation rate.

Struggling to pay for college is something Cauce has personal experience with growing up in a college-going home with financial challenges.  Her father was the minister of education in Cuba before the family fled to Florida in the 1960s where he then got a job in a factory. Cauce lived at home and worked while on scholarship at the University of Miami.  Her brother started out in community college and eventually earned a full scholarship to Duke only after a mentor recognized his talent and helped him apply for aid.

“There was no question that we were going to college,” she said. “The real question was how were we going to pay for it. My parents didn’t understand the system.  School was free in Cuba.”

When she graduated from university, Cauce intended to take on the world as an investigative journalist a la Woodward and Bernstein but changed course when a good paying research job emerged in a lab.  Her love of research and human development led her to a career in clinical psychology and a PhD from Yale.

But Cauce says her experience as a minority student in an elite institution left her with “zero self-esteem,” and no doubt contributed to her passion for inclusion.

“I say to students all the time, the world is not small and private. It is big and public,” she said.

Indeed, Cauce’s down-to-earth style is refreshing for someone working in a sector increasingly viewed as out of touch with everyday people. While she defends the support students of marginalized identities receive through DEI programs– “That’s what those offices are there for.  This work must be done” — she is less concerned about how they are organized. She also sees the need to view diversity more broadly.  “I’m not sure higher ed has done a good enough job at that,” she said.

As a clinical psychologist, Cauce addressed the rising rates of mental health issues among students early on in her presidency with increased clinical supports. But in discussing mental health, she also emphasizes the need for coping skills. 

“Nine out of ten times what messes you up is not the problem itself, it is the way you cope with it,” she said.

I say to students all the time, the world is not small and private. It is big and public.

The university has a Resilience Lab which promotes wellbeing through research, education and strategic programs and initiatives. It includes a six-week program which equips participants with cognitive skills to manage stressful emotions and situations, and mindfulness skills to strengthen self-awareness and empathy.

Asked how to create a sense of belonging in a school so large, Cauce says there are myriad ways for students to “find their people” and believes navigating large environments like a public university teaches important life skills.  “I wonder if we don’t do our students a disservice with too much handholding,” she said. 

Cauce is predictably pragmatic on the debate about the value and purpose of college.  “We do have to justify what we’re doing and why it makes a difference if we’re getting public money, and all of us do,” she said. 

As to the question of whether you go to college to get a job or to grow as a person, Cauce said, “I think this idea that it’s careerism versus knowledge for life is a false dichotomy. It’s really important not to be narrow-based in our teaching because we need to be giving people an education where they are life-long learners and informed citizens.  But there is nothing wrong with the fact that our students want jobs. As DuBois said, ‘It’s not just about making a living, it’s about making a life. But if you can’t make a living, you can’t make a life.’”

Ana Mari Cauce will retire from UW in June of 2025.

When Kevon Pascoe decided to apply for a part-time job at Kentucky Fried Chicken, it wasn’t primarily about the paycheck. He was nearly finished with his contract with the Marine Corps, which had paid for his bachelor’s degree at Norwich University in Vermont. He knew he wanted to pursue an MBA. And he’d just heard about the partnership between KFC and Western Governors University (WGU), an online-only institution.

“I heard about a new program that if you’re an employee at KFC, they will pay for you to go to WGU,” says Pascoe, who emigrated from Jamaica with his brother in 2010. He’d always had a clear vision for his future, and it involved education, hard work, and hustle. When he looked into the details of WGU, he discovered a program that would allow him to work at his own pace, and complete courses quickly based on proving competency in the material. He got the job at KFC working nights while working days in the Marine Corps, and then completed his MBA—as well as a second master’s degree, in Management and Leadership—in one year.

“Some would say that that’s impossible, but it’s because of how flexible WGU is. The concepts that I had within my MBA really kind of correlates with what I did in the Marine Corps as a logistics officer,” says Pascoe. “If I already knew the material, I could test out of it quickly. If I needed help, help was there. Everything was on my pace, on my terms, and that allowed me to find a rhythm and complete it on my own time.”

Pascoe now works for Pfizer full-time as an Incoming Material Testing Manager and is taking advantage of a Pfizer benefit that enables him to pursue an online PhD in organizational management. “That’s kind of who I am, in terms of challenging myself,” he says. “I’m always in a state of learning.”

Kevon Pascoe’s story reflects the effectiveness of WGU for non-traditional students who are drawn by its flexible pacing, flat-rate pricing, and engaged mentoring. But additional evidence came to light when the university began partnering with Gallup to survey its alumni: The survey results revealed satisfaction levels that rival, and often exceed, those of traditional universities—both online and in-person.

WGU alumni, it seems, are not only pleased to have had their needs met with career-ready programs and a commitment to affordability. They are reporting higher levels of satisfaction with their career and calling their degree a worthwhile investment—noteworthy at a time when that investment is sometimes called into question by those mired in debt.

What is WGU?

In 1997, Western Governors University was conceived by 19 U.S. governors who envisioned a flexible university structure for underserved student populations—working adults and mid-career professionals who needed a flexible pathway to their degrees, particularly in high-demand fields such as nursing and IT.

Instead of relying on the traditional credit-hour model, WGU adopted a competency-based education (CBE) model, allowing students to progress by demonstrating mastery of material. This model was designed with flexibility in mind, ideal for adult learners managing jobs or family responsibilities who needed alternatives to on-campus programs to get the degree they were lacking in order to boost their responsibility, title, and earnings. The result was a fully online institution that could cater to students regardless of geographic location or time constraints.

WGU’s flat-rate tuition model enables students to complete as many courses as they can within a six-month term for a single fee. That plan is attractive to this motivated demographic; 93% of its students are over 24 or older (compared to 38% of those at U.S. bachelor’s-granting institutions), 95% are financially independent (compared to 29% nationally), and 57% are married (compared to 11% nationally)​. The average WGU bachelor’s degree student spends around $6,600 per year on tuition—nearly 40% less than the national average—and after graduation, carries an average loan of $8,228, compared to $18,775 for graduates nationally ($21,335 for those in private universities). On average, they finish their degree in 2.4 years, typically while working—a shorter path that translates to significant savings for adult learners, and an express lane to the job advancements they were seeking with those credentials. In 2021, WGU’s Michael O. Leavitt School of Health produced 17% of the nation’s registered nurses earning a BS in its hybrid prelicensure program (60 percent of the work completed online, 40 percent undertaken in hands-on clinical work in community-based settings).

Gallup Poll: WGU Restoring Confidence in the Value of a Degree

Pascoe’s sentiments towards WGU is not unique. The most recent Gallup survey reflects a level of alumni satisfaction unusually high for any type of institution, both online and traditional.

Gallup surveyed nearly 2,800 WGU alumni who completed their undergraduate degree between 2018 and 2022, collecting information about graduates’ experiences while enrolled, as well as data on postgraduation metrics related to employment and wellbeing. The survey found that WGU alumni were nearly twice as likely to recommend their alma mater as graduates of other schools. Specifically, 76% of WGU alumni reported that they would “highly recommend” the university, compared to the national average of 41%​​. Three-quarters of WGU graduates trust their university to make decisions with students’ best interests in mind, compared with 39% of graduates nationally. The relationship WGU students have with the faculty and staff at the university is tangible, even though they are not physically together in the classroom: Eight in 10 graduates say they had a mentor at the university who encouraged them to pursue their goals and dreams, which is 28 percentage points higher than the national average (52%). And 73% of WGU alumni strongly agreed that their degree was worth the cost—compared to just 34% of graduates nationwide.

The relationship WGU students have with the faculty and staff at the university is tangible, even though they are not physically together in the classroom.

“Findings show that WGU alumni are far more satisfied with their undergraduate experience than bachelor’s degree holders nationally,” the report concludes. “Graduates are positive about WGU’s student support system, caring and committed faculty, inclusive learning environment and career‑relevant curriculum. Collectively, these factors contribute to why WGU alumni are twice as likely as other college graduates to recommend their alma mater.”

WGU graduates also go on to report high levels of well-being and workplace engagement. Gallup data reveals that 77% of WGU alumni rate their lives positively, a significantly higher proportion than among adults without a degree (50%)​ and are more likely to be enthusiastic and invested in their work, with 44% of alumni engaged at work compared to 35% of bachelor’s degree holders nationally​.

Stephanie Marken, a senior partner at Gallup who led WGU’s research, sees the university’s high satisfaction rates as a direct result of its pragmatic competency-based education (CBE) model, and the type of goal-oriented students who are aware of what they want from it.

“I think when you’re designing curriculum with career in mind, you’re designing very strategically to fit the student’s need. We know empirically, through the survey that Gallup had in partnership with Strada Education Network, that the relevancy of curriculum was one of the strongest predictors of self-reported value of experience,” she says. “And it’s a simple reason, right? That people feel like, ‘I am going to be able to use this information. It is going to be inherently valuable to me in my career.’ And I think WGU is just very laser focused on that.”  

For many prospective students, and first-generation students in particular, higher education is a mystery: How is admission decided, how are scholarships determined, how do you quantify how much is worth spending, and how do you know if there’s really a return on investment?

“Higher ed feels like a little bit of a black box. And anything we could do to make it clearer, to show the average outcomes, and what people expect when they graduate, demystifies things,” says Marken. Whenever students can draw a clear line to what was enabled because of a degree, they are going to report greater satisfaction with that degree, and with the choice they made to pursue it. “WGU prioritizes that clarity, which I think help explains the alumni satisfaction rates and self-reported wellness value.”

The Power of Mentorship

While the competency-based model is at the heart of WGU’s appeal, there’s more to it than just flexibility. One of the distinctive features of WGU’s model is its compulsory mentorship program, which provides each student with a dedicated mentor who offers personalized guidance and support. This mentor is solely focused on helping students navigate their academic journey, offering advice on coursework and even helping them manage personal challenges that might impact their studies—say, food assistance, childcare, housing, or other issues that can impact the ability and confidence to be successful.

“Every single student, when they start their program, is assigned a program mentor, and that mentor knows what your goal is. They know what classes you need to complete to get there, and they’re going to help you out all along the way,” says Robert Sullivan, Senior Director of Alumni Engagement. “We are serving a lot of people who arechoosing their education for very specific outcomes, and we are very good at providing the support to make sure they get there.”

For Pascoe, this mentorship was crucial. Jeremy Little was assigned to be his mentor for the MBA, and Pascoe requested Little again for his MSML degree. “That man is awesome. He cheered me on in every aspect. He was there to let me know the results of a practice test, always checking up on me, there to remind me of the motivation, it doesn’t matter what time of the night,” he says. “His care, his commitment, and really his compassion in his job really helped my success in both degrees.”

After a year of an online mentoring relationship, Pascoe and Little were able to meet in person when both traveled to the WGU commencement ceremony. “It’s one thing to create a relationship virtually, but another thing to see that person in real life. Amazing,” he says. “It was just one of those moments where everything just fit together.”

Avoiding debt, aligning values

Students who are able to secure a degree without incurring significant loan debt know full well the bullet they are dodging.

An estimated 42.2 million Americans hold federal student loan debt with a total national balance of over $1.6 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve. Higher education is supposed to improve quality of life, granting access to high-quality jobs that provide greater stability, higher salaries, and critical benefits like healthcare. But the burden of debt risks capsizing the benefits, while causing prolonged stress, anxiety, and feelings of shame.

A 2023 Gallup-Lumina study found that 41% of enrolled bachelor’s students had considered dropping out in the past six months, many citing concerns about paying for their education. And almost 40% of middle and high school youth say they are not interested in pursuing a postsecondary degree.

Helping students avoid that debt, and not be scared away from higher ed, is central to WGU’s mission. “Individual economic outcomes for students is critical,” says Marken. “A lot of their students tend to be underserved populations, and that makes affordable higher education an actual lever for economic mobility when it could have been a significant burden.” The relief and gratitude of alumni of not shouldering tremendous debt, she says, is a further reason for their high levels of satisfaction.

WGU commencement ceremonies take place seven times a year in locations around the country, Sullivan says, and represent the convergence of a few thousand people who have made a conscious choice to prioritize their higher education in a self-paced, self-motivated way. First-generation families. Students and mentors meeting in person for the first time. The first graduate of the KFC Foundation program, Kevon Pascoe, honored with a KFC bucket with his face on it.

“Watching these people walk across the stage to get their degree, it’s a pretty special moment, seeing these students and mentors meet. And the student speaker talking about their life and experience, will make you cry 100% every time, it doesn’t matter how many you’ve seen,” says Sullivan. “When students achieve this degree that made the difference in getting them over the hump to where they wanted to be, it’s no wonder they’re satisfied.”

Rochester, Minnesota has one of the highest per capita physician to population ratios in the country. Home to the Mayo Clinic, it benefits from the prosperity and diversity of its anchor institution, consistently rated the best hospital in the world. In 2009, the city strengthened its distinction as “America’s City for Health” when it launched a research university that would complement Mayo Clinic’s medical research enterprise and meet its ongoing workforce needs. The community appears to be getting all that and more with the University of Minnesota Rochester (UMR) – an innovative learning environment that centers equity and wellbeing as it takes on healthcare’s grand challenges. 

“Building a major university here, particularly one focused on health care, has been so important to the fabric of this city,” said Mayor Kim Norton. “I am so proud of the work that they do and the success they have had with their students.” 

UMR opened its doors to its first 57 students in 2009 after a multi-year effort among community leaders brought a regional branch of the University of Minnesota to town. It has grown to nearly 1,000 students who prepare to enter a variety of health-related fields, clinical, technical, and administrative. Two-thirds of the students are in at least one category that would be considered historically underrepresented. This fall, nearly 50% of the student population will be BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of color). 

Bringing more students of color into the medical professions is one of the goals of the UMR/Mayo Clinic partnership which hopes to provide a stronger pathway to medical careers as it diversifies a health care workforce that serves patients from around the world. “We have a strong focus on diversity, equity and inclusion here to make sure we represent all of society and that our patients can see themselves in their caregivers,” said Karen Helfinstine, Mayo Clinic’s Vice Chair of Education Administration. “Our partnership with UMR is critical to cultivating the workforce of the future.”

From the university side of the partnership, Mayo Clinic provides the promise of a good career for its students as well as an opportunity to foster an educational environment leading to flourishing in life and work. The teaching hospital adjacent to the university has built-in opportunities for experiential learning, research and mentorships — educational experiences that have proven to lead to improved wellbeing — and all part of UMR’s innovative, student-centered learning environment. 

The university’s motto is simple and forthcoming, aptly describing the building blocks that have led to its early success. “Students are at the center. Research informs practice. Partners make it possible.” Lori Carrell is UMR’s Chancellor and its passionate champion. It is clear she views the world through an asset-based lens, believing starting from scratch is an opportunity for innovation, just as students who have struggled possess valuable qualities. 

The teaching hospital adjacent to the university has built-in opportunities for experiential learning, research and mentorships

“One of the things that our students have in common is that they have persevered through major challenges in childhood or and adolescence,” she said. “There’s a resilience element we have the privilege of seeing in admissions. If a student can describe how their perseverance has been a catalyst for their passion to make a difference in the world through a career in health, we believe them to be well equipped for the rigor and compassion of this work.” 

A communications scholar who has published books on the need for change in higher education, Carrell says the methods they were experimenting with at UMR are what attracted her to it in 2014, when she first became Vice Chancellor. One of the university’s founding principles is a unique research mission where every faculty member does their primary research on student learning and student development regardless of their own subject matter expertise. 

“One of the great misses in higher education is we do not apply educational research or neuroscience about learning to how we structure college degrees or college life,” she said. “At UMR, we had a blank canvas to do that. Our faculty are in one interdisciplinary department called the Center for Learning Innovation. They demonstrate teaching excellence by providing evidence of learning and they progress in their careers by doing research on student learning and student development.” 

Andrew Petzold is a biology professor at UMR and, like Carrell, was drawn to the school because of its innovative teaching environment. “We are really in the trenches collecting data on the educational process and what students are actually learning and we use that to better inform our teaching in the future,” he said. “The interest is in student success rather than just publishing anything we possibly can.” 

Petzold says that the interdisciplinary focus on educational research leads to joint scholarship as well as active, student-centered classrooms. “We all have our own disciplinary focus, but I can talk and collaborate with other faculty in a much easier way because we all have a background in educational research.” 

UMR’s unique teaching environment has been highly recognized within the system and beyond. In its short history, seven UMR faculty members received the Horace T. Morse-University of Minnesota Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Contribution to Undergraduate Education. But fans of UMR’s research-embedded learning are quick to acknowledge the importance of pairing great teaching with proven student success strategies, many included in AAC&U’s high impact practices. Every student at UMR has a student success coach. With a ratio of one to 80, “success coaches” help with everything from flagging academic struggles to connecting people to internships to making sure students are focusing on their wellbeing. Graduating students joke that their student success coaches are what they most want to take with them when they go. 

“These kinds of personal connections are where the sense of belonging comes from,” Carrell said. “‘I am connected to somebody and I matter here, so I can be ok even on really hard days.’” 

UMR’s health majors are academically rigorous and can be challenging for some students. For this reason, the campus launched with a “JustASK” program which is important to active learning and made possible by the openness and collaborative nature of the faculty. “There are no lectures here,” said Carrell. “Our instruction is active and experiential so students have to be prepared to do project work in the classroom and they have to have access to faculty if they need help,” she said. Instead of office hours, which many students don’t utilize, UMR faculty sit out in open spaces as an interdisciplinary team at JustASK so someone is available to help with a question or concern. 

“These kinds of personal connections are where the sense of belonging comes from. I am connected to somebody and I matter here, so I can be ok even on really hard days.”

Perhaps the most notable outcome of UMR’s evidence-based learning practices is the fact that the university has all but eliminated the achievement gap between underrepresented students and other students. . This outcome is something the campus community is very proud of but does not take for granted. She says building on UMR’s early success with students will take vigilance and a comprehensive approach which includes addressing one of the biggest barriers to a college degree for underrepresented students – affordability. Here, UMR and Mayo Clinic are leading the way with an innovative partnership called “NXT GEN MED.” 

In December of 2024, the first class of NXT GEN MED students will graduate with a degree from the University of Minnesota within 2.5 years. The accelerated degree program for students interested in non-patient care careers has taken the traditional eight semester bachelors degree and applied it to a yearly calendar, lessening overall costs for students who are also given scholarship money if they are eligible. The partnership with Mayo Clinic includes a paid, credit-bearing internship, a Mayo Clinic mentor as well as a student success coach and research experience. As a result, UMR students are well positioned for employment upon graduation, either at the Mayo Clinic or in other institutions.

“What has been so beautiful about this partnership is hearing from the students how meaningful these experiences have been for them,” said Mayo Clinic’s Karen Helfinstine.

The program is an early example of a movement to create undergraduate degree options that increase student success while decreasing student cost known as “College-in-3.” Chancellor Carrell is a national leader in this area and views her advocacy as an extension of her work to revitalize the sector. When it comes to higher education challenges, Carrell says there are two for which there is little disagreement: college costs too much and many students who start do not complete. “College-in-3” programs are meant to address both of these problems at once, with evidence-based curricular designs. 

“These programs are not about lopping something off, they’re about crafting something better. You’ve got three years. How do you design research-embedded, experiential, transformative learning that leads to human flourishing? That’s the opportunity.”