The Affordable University Where Most Graduate with Zero Debt

Geordie Hyland, president and CEO of the American College of Education, joined me to talk about how ACE is helping more educators earn degrees with less student debt. We discussed the college’s laser focus on learning, implementation of credit for prior learning, and the role of employers.

Michael Horn:

I am delighted that you're all joining us on the show where we are dedicated to building a world in which all individuals can build their passions, fulfill their potential, and live a life of purpose. And to help us think about this today, I'm delighted because I've got a longtime friend whose career I have followed through his different stops along the way. His name is Geordie Hyland. He's currently the President and CEO of the American College of Education, which we're going to learn a lot about today. But, Geordie, so good to see you. Thanks for joining us.

Geordie Hyland:

Yeah, thanks for having me. And I've been a big fan of yours over the years. I'm a big fan of your podcast and your work, so it's really an honor to be speaking to you today.

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The Founding Story of American College of Education

Michael Horn:

So, you're the doer, so let's dive in. Tell folks about the American College of Education, ACE, what you do, you know, who you serve, how you do it. Because I suspect while it's a really neat story, I suspect it's not one that many people have heard.

Geordie Hyland:

Okay, well, appreciate the opportunity to do that. So American College of Education, we refer to it internally as ACE. I do think it's a unique institution in higher ed, and we're really trying to get the word out to students, but I think it also has a unique model that's relevant to other higher ed institutions. So it was founded in 2005 with the original premise of offering a Master's less than $5,000 to teachers. And there was a founding decision, not even though it's HLC accredited, Higher Learning Commission accredited, not to accept Title 4 loans. And so I think with. With the original premise and with that founding decision, we've really scaled over time with those guiding principles in mind. So we're at about 11,000 students right now, and we offer programming in education to teachers, but also in healthcare, nursing, and business. And we've really been focused on quality, flexibility, and affordability. And so that affordability combined with quality is key. And currently our Masters are less than $10,000. Our Ed.Ds are less than $24,000. We have a wide range of programming. For example, in education, we can take paraprofessional all the way to a superintendent and everything in between. And I think what is remarkable and something that I wanted to talk about today is the student outcomes. So we have about 85% graduation rate. We have, in States where our students are taking licensure exams, they meet or exceed the state averages. And one of the things that really differentiates us with our focus on working adults that are working full time while they're studying with us is the majority of our students pay as they go, and 85% of them come out with no debt. And in the larger context of higher ed, where there's $1.6 or $1.7 trillion, I can't keep track. There's a lot of federal student loans outstanding, and the average debt rates for a Master's degree student from studies I've seen is about $83,000 and PhD students is about $125,000. I think it's very differentiated and very remarkable that our students come out, 85% of them with no debt and in great standing to be able to proceed in their careers, receive salary adjustments, and really benefit from the experience.

Disrupting Educator Education

Michael Horn:

Wow. Okay, so there's a lot there that's, I think, super interesting that we can unpack together. But the under $10,000, right, for a Master's degree, the principled decision not to take federal financial aid, meaning students are by definition not going to go into certainly student loan debt from the federal government, maybe they have some private loans. But 85% of your grads graduate with no debt whatsoever, and you have an 85% grad rate. And you're an online program, which means you're much more convenient and accessible. It seems to me like you're sort of fitting into this definition of disruptive innovation that we think. Right? Lower cost, more accessible, more convenient.

But you've done it not just around that, but around a value proposition where you're actually delivering on these student outcomes together. I'd love to just hear you sort of riff on that for a little bit. And you know, I guess the corollary is like, it's nice to be a disruptive innovation, but why does it matter? Why? Assuming you think it is.

Geordie Hyland:

Yeah, why? When I think about disruptive innovation, I go to Dr. Clayton Christensen's book and your important work in the area. And so seeing as you actually wrote the book or a couple books on this, I feel kind of funny talking about it, but I'll give it my best shot in terms of. So when I think about it with disruptive innovation, that the new innovation needs to be convenient and it needs to be affordable. And over time, it moves up market and starts to disrupt an incumbent that is less nimble. And I think another characteristic that's really important is that it brings more consumers into the market that wouldn't previously be interested in that product or service. So at a high level, that's kind of what comes to mind for me. I know there's a lot more behind the theory and in your analysis around it, but that's ACE to me. I mean, when I think about ACE, we've really had the discipline to remain affordable. We haven't raised our prices since 2016 in the larger context of huge tuition inflation. And then we're really committed to credit for prior learning. So we often can, where it's appropriate, provide college credit for professional development for students as they come in or for previous learning to further bring down the costs. And so over time, our net tuition has actually decreased over the last few years. And obviously with the fully online modality that's very convenient for working adults. So our typical student is a working teacher, a working nurse that's working full time, has family commitments that's able to do this while they have lots of life issues going on and then they receive a tangible benefit at the end, typically with more career opportunities and a salary adjustment. So that's very differentiated than the traditional model where a student would have to take time out, they'd have to travel into a bricks and mortar location. And it's just a very, I think a less convenient model traditionally. But I think we're also changing the paradigm with not accepting Title 4 loans and creating a model that's based upon pay as you go, keeping the prices down so our learners are able to do that and for the majority come out with no debt. So to your second question about why it's important. I think that within higher ed right now, I mean I'm a huge believer in the benefit of higher ed. I think that higher ed has such an important place in society. Lots of studies have shown that there's huge benefits to the individual, to society, to all sorts of things. But I think there's elements of higher ed right now that should be disrupted. And one piece of that is the reliance on debt. As I mentioned before, $1.7 trillion of outstanding federal loans, the average debt rates of $83,000 for a Master's, $125,000 for a PhD. Those debt levels can be catastrophic in terms of the impact on individuals lives as they build their career following graduation. There's life decisions like buying a house, starting a family that can lead to mental health issues. There's all sorts of knock down effects with those sorts of debt levels. And I think it makes it challenging for higher ed. Institutions to show the value proposition when there's this addition of the student debt. So one of the things that we've really been able to do in a compelling way is show the ROI for our students. We've worked with Lightcast, which is a market research firm. They looked at the earnings and the data on our graduates, and they calculated that for every $1 a student invests in our tuition, they receive $19.20 in future career earnings. And that's huge. I mean, that's a very tangible metric in terms of what students can expect. And I think that in my opinion, there's huge swaths of higher ed that really are focused on institutional ROI rather than the student ROI. They're not adequately tracking the graduate earnings and career pathways, and they're not as aligned to the, to the business community as they could be in support of their students. There's been a number of studies. I could point your listeners to a couple that I think are really interesting onthis. One is from the Wall Street Journal recently.

It was called “Colleges Spend like There's No Tomorrow. These Places Are Just Devouring Money.” That's an interesting one. It studies the 50 major public institutions and it shows that with data looking at their financial statements that they're really not focused on - while the tuition has been going up - the focus in terms of their expenses hasn't been on teaching and learning. It's been on facilities, amenities, more administration, and sports coaches. And another recent study which is really interesting from Georgetown, it's called “Graduate Degrees:Risky and Unequal Paths to the Top.” And it shows that the graduate tuition has increased significantly over the last 20 years and challenges around that. So following that release, we actually called for higher ed institutions that are graduate granting to have a freeze on their tuition for the next five years. As I mentioned, we haven't raised our tuition since 2016. And I really believe there's a place for more higher ed institutions to focus on the teaching and learning, really bring more discipline to their expenses in the interest of the student to try to bring the cost down.

ACE’s Secret: A Focus on Learning

Michael Horn:

There's so much there that's, I think, differentiated, stands out, right? Is really focused on the student and making sure that they get ahead. I mean, that ROI, you listed every $1 of tuition, $19.20 in return, I've got to ask, like, what's the secret sauce? Like, how are you getting outcomes like this? Because, you know, in other online programs, you know, if they graduate 50% of students, we say that they're doing an amazing job for working adults, you are at 85% and getting these sorts of outcomes, like, what's the secret sauce?

Geordie Hyland:

Well, so I think there's a number of elements to it. I mean, first of all, we have fantastic students that are great students that see the value in coming to us and are really dedicated to the academic, the academic journey. But from an institutional perspective, we really do focus on the teaching and learning. We're focused, since founding, on the value proposition of students. We have a centralized curriculum model. We spend a lot of time on training our faculty, on investing in the process for building their curriculum with our SMEs and with our internal instructional designers, and then on supporting the students throughout their journey. We also are very committed to continuous improvement. We leverage a lot of data to continue to over time, constantly and relentlessly looking at how students are performing and how we can better support their success. And the budgeting process with us is very rigorous. I mean, we're with not increasing tuition since 2016, but with growing over time. You know, we're growing typically 20% a year. We have ratios in terms of our staff to students for some of the positions. And we also have invested heavily in our platforms and our technology. But we really have a lot of discipline in terms of what we invest in and in terms of innovating and trying new things. We pilot a lot of things and then we have a succeed or fail fast approach where if things aren't working, we're proactive in terms of, okay, let's shut this down and focus on another pilot. And that's our approach to innovation.

Striking the Balance with Credit for Prior Learning

Michael Horn:

Gotcha. No, it's just, it really does stand out. And I guess the other piece of that is you said credit for prior learning, your net tuition has decreased over time. Yes, I guess I have two questions on that. One, it strikes me that a lot of institutions, they'll give a lot of lip service to credit for prior learning, or frankly credit from credits earned at another institution, but it feels not really in their business model or their faculty's interest to do so. And so they sort of make it hard and complicated. But then the second question, I guess is the corollary, which is like, how do you make sure you're not just giving credit for prior learning and becoming a diploma mill. Right?

And just giving out degrees because it sort of gets people through quicker. Like, how do you balance those two things?

Geordie Hyland:

That's a great couple questions, and there's a lot to that, but I appreciate the question. So I think first of all, it's very consistent with our model of being focused on the student value proposition to have a well thought out approach to credit for prior learning. So as students come in, we're looking at their previouslearnings and assessing credit as appropriate. But we also have corporate partnership with professional development providers where we've looked across their professional development and then for the professional development as appropriate, we've provided pathways for credit into our programs. And I think there's a lot of benefit there to the student because it can shave off time, which is a huge value proposition to student and tuition cost in their journey with us. And so it's in the interest of the student. And I've often heard that there are barriers set up in a lot of higher ed to doing this effectively, but I don't think those barriers are in the best interest of the student when the credit is provided appropriately.

In terms of our approach to that, we've set up an internal team. We have individuals focused solely on credit for prior learning. They're following the industry best practices, they're working across our academic and other teams to make sure that there's comfort in how we're assessing and providing credit for the prior learning. And so we're very comfortable with the process and with the fact that it's solely in the best interest of the student. If they already know the materials in a given area and they've put in the time and invested in it, it makes sense to provide the credit for them.

Michael Horn:

Yeah, it makes sense. And obviously I guess you see it in the licensure exams. Your graduates are having no problem graduating. So you know, you're not like reducing academic standards or something like that?

Geordie Hyland:

No, for sure. And we also see it in the employer satisfaction, over 90% in terms of their satisfaction with us. And we see that in the career progression of our graduates. Our graduates self report their first year salary increases and the latest data on that is in the first year across our degree programs, the average is over $20,000 in terms of that salary increase. So we're seeing a lot of value for the student and we're seeing a lot of value for the ultimate employers. So the school districts or hospital systems in them supporting our students as they get their degrees and continue to go on their employment journey with the employers.

The Role of Employers in Higher Ed.

Michael Horn:

Well, so that's the next part I wanted to talk about, which is like the, the employers, you're graduating students into them, sometimes they're working and you're sort of elevating them within. How do you think about employers and their place in the higher education ecosystem? Maybe more generally or at a level of like philosophically. Right? What's the role of employers in higher ed?

Geordie Hyland:

Sure. So I think that given that there's a challenge with the value proposition of higher ed, it's important that higher ed works closely with employers to make sure that there's a close connection between the learnings and the career pathways of graduates so that the school experience can provide a pathway for, that's relevant for students into employers. So what that means for us is, I mean, we work incredibly closely with, with employers. Obviously we're working with working adults. So the stakes are high. We need to make sure, so we have advisory boards, we have lots of feedback loops. We need to make sure that our, our curriculum is, is as relevant as possible and as close as possible to job experience to enable our graduates to get ahead. We also have in many of our courses, job embedded learning opportunities where our students can work with their employers on actual assignments and projects. So that's one piece of it. We need to be very relevant for our adult learners. But then there's lots of other pieces to it that we're focused on. So we have partnerships with thousands of school districts and hospital systems where employees can come to us and receive an education as benefit, pay for our degrees, and then be reimbursed by their employer. Those are really important relationships. And again, very, you know, we spend a lot of time with those partners to make sure that we're supporting those relationships. So that's another piece. The professional development partnerships that we talked about with credit for prior learning, that's another really important piece where we work closely with corporate entities and then we are fortunate to serve the teachers and nurses.And in those industries there's a lot of shortages. So everyone that's listening, I'm sure, has read about teacher shortages, nursing shortages, and so we are very passionate about doing what we can to contribute to helping to solve or being a solution to that contributes positively to those shortages. So we, in the spirit of that, we work directly with the leadership of school districts and also hospital systems to provide bespoke solutions to help strengthen the human capital and to help those institutions better attract, retain and upskill their employees. So there's a number of levels on how we partner and support employers. And so it's very important to us, and I think it's hugely important to the value proposition overall for higher ed.

Leveraging Elements of the Apprenticeship Model

Michael Horn:

No, it makes a ton of sense. Okay, we could finish up in a couple different places here, but like, it's actually two more questions. So it seems to me, as you're describing this that you are not an apprenticeship model, but you actually have a lot of the features of an apprenticeship model. And what I mean by that is the students you're serving, they're often employed, not just in general, but like employed at the place that they might then continue to work as they upskill.

Geordie Hyland:

Right.

Michael Horn:

And so it strikes me that like, and you're giving credit for prior learning and like if they do something on the job, you can, you can give credit for that or work based learning. And so I, you know, teacher, excuse me. Apprenticeship degrees are getting a lot more attention right now.

Geordie Hyland:

Yeah, no, it's great to see.

Michael Horn:

But it seems like you are actually doing a lot of the features of an apprenticeship without the name. Am I, am I misreading it or do you.

Geordie Hyland:

No, I think that's fair. And we're certainly doing everything we can to support school districts and hospital systems. And if you think about how we work with a school system, for example, I mean we have programming from a Bachelor completer to a Master's, a principal certificate, teacher licensure, Ed.D, and a wide range of different programs. And so we can really support the career pathway of an individual as they progress in their career. And our programs actually stack together. And so for example, many credits come through from a Master's into our Ed.D. And so I think you're spot on in terms of we're looking to make our learning come alive and be as relevant as possible. There's opportunities for individuals to work directly with their employer as they're in our programs.

And we're also really trying to map what we do to the organizational help of the organizations that we're supporting. And I think, you know, one of the things that we're hopeful that we're, we will do over, that we contribute to over time and we'll be able to show over time as well is as we're working closely with the school district supporting the progression of the strengthening of the human capital that really helps with learning outcomes or likewise at a hospital system as we're supporting the progress of the human capital that can lead to better health outcomes. So we're very focused, I think on the strengthening of human capital and ultimately the communities that we work in.

The Employee Experience at ACE

Michael Horn:

So a lot of mutual benefit there and then the other place it seems like you have mutual benefit is the people that make it happen internally at ACE, which is the employees. I know you have incredibly low turnover rates. People stay, they build careers at the college. Talk a little bit about sort of, you know, the employee experience at ACE, Faculty, staff.

Geordie Hyland:

Yeah.

Michael Horn:

And why that matters for what you do.

Geordie Hyland:

Yeah, no, appreciate the question. I mean, we are a people business, so we live and die by our people. And I think one of the aspects of ACE that's really important to call out is there's a very strong connection between the mission of the organization and our day to day operations. And so I think there's a close connection there where our teams and our staff and our faculty can feel like they're contributing to helping strengthen the human capital of school districts every day or hospital systems. And it's very tangible and so I think that really helps. We have a very mission driven team that really wants to make a difference and I think a lot of them, it's fair to say, really feel like they are making a difference day to day. So I think that's very helpful and really helps us to hire the best people as well because there's people that come in and feel like they can make a difference with us. We've been fortunate to be recognized by Energage as a top employer over the last three years. 93% of our employees feel like there's a strong mission and sort of believe in the direction of the institution. So I think that's important. And then also we're a B Corp and so that that is a separate process that we go through with B Labs that validates that we're having a positive impact on the greater good. And our staff can volunteer in their local communities 14 hours a year. That's supported by us as PTO. We call it Civic hours. So there's a lot of aspects of ACE that I think are helping people feel like we're trying to do the right thing by our students and by our communities. It's interesting.I've seen a lot of articles lately about employers bringing staff back to the office. We're actually fully remote. Our students are obviously fully remote. Our staff is fully remote. And I think that also helps us to attract the best people for any given role because we're not constrained to one specific location within the United States.

Michael Horn:

Super interesting. Geordie, thank you so much for coming on and talking about the American College of Education. What you do, the students you serve, the employers, districts, hospital systems, etc. That you serve and then the people at the heart of it really appreciate what you are doing for students. Last thing before we leave, folks who want to learn more about ACE, where should they go besides listening to your voice? Come on commercials while they're maybe on a rower watching the NFL Channel.

Geordie Hyland:

Yeah, no, I would recommend just going to our website, www.ACE.edu. There's lots of information there and I'm always available to answer questions if anyone wants to reach out to me as well. But I really appreciate your time. And as I mentioned, I'm a great, great fan. Congrats on your new book and love watching what you do.

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