The end of the year brings many holiday celebrations. While they mean different things in different traditions, common themes include expressing gratitude for past accomplishments and a resolve to build upon them. As we look forward to 2025, we are not only closing out another year at CAEL; we are also marking the completion of a major milestone—our 50th anniversary. We thought this occasion was the perfect time to release our latest impact report. After all, delivering impact for adult learners and workers has been central to our mission since day one at CAEL. But in the 18,500+ days since, our pursuit of our mission has evolved greatly!
To be clear, our mission still begins and ends with adult learners and workers. CAEL was founded on the then-revolutionary principle that higher education should be more inclusive by affirming diverse students’ lived experiences and the college-level learning they contain. But as we begin CAEL’s next 50-year chapter, we stand determined to address this mission in new and innovative ways.
As laid out in our theory of change, our ability to support individual learners is integrated with our work around partner and systemic impact. All three phases amplify each other, which is reflected throughout our latest impact report. CAEL’s membership represents the biggest—and most diverse—community of practice in our history. Today, it includes more than 5,000 individuals representing postsecondary education institutions and other education providers, state higher education systems, employers, workforce development boards, training organizations, economic development organizations and nonprofits. Our impact report breaks down our audience segments and shares some additional details about CAEL’s value to and collaboration with our membership.
Growing our community of practice creates more opportunities for students to leverage the knowledge, skills and abilities they have developed outside of the college classroom through credit for prior learning (CPL). While our research demonstrates that CPL boosts completion rates, saves time and money for adult learners and even contributes to institutional bottom lines, only about 10% of adult college students earn credit through CPL. Our report details how CAEL has grown the depth and breadth of our CPL work, including key member resources, technical assistance, technology innovations and policy efforts that help amplify our CPL impact. One example: CAEL engaged 113 postsecondary institutions with our customized CPL resources in 2023. That resulted in the receipt of nearly 4,000 CPL credits, representing an estimated total tuition savings of more than $1.4 million.
One of the many great things about CPL is that it entails employer-educator engagement. Linking learning and work is critical to CAEL’s capacity to serve not only adult learners but the other half of their identity as well: workers. With lifelong learning an imperative, employers have a major (and mutually beneficial) role in helping learners and workers access upskilling and reskilling opportunities that advance careers, including the use of CPL. CAEL has increased its collaboration with individual employers as well as industry partnerships such as the Energy Providers Coalition for Education and the National Alliance for Communications Technology Education and Learning, both of which are highlighted in our impact report. Together, they have upskilled or credentialed more than 27,000 adult learners throughout their operating history.
Our strategic partnership with The Graduate! Network, which began in fall 2023, also figures prominently in our impact report. This partnership has helped us forge even stronger links between learning and work by incorporating a new talent development tool for employers, the Bridging the Talent Gap regional survey campaign, creating a baseline against which employers can track progress toward upskilling goal attainment. The Graduate! Network also has a long legacy of engaging traditionally underserved adult learners, including the critical comebacker population—the 45+ million Americans who left college without receiving a credential. We have enhanced our capacity through TGN’s comebacker support model, which revolves around high-quality contact with navigators and has improved re-enrollment rates by more than 280%. This benefit has had the greatest impact on adult learners who face multiple barriers to educational and career success.
Regional examples in the impact report highlight CAEL’s support of equitable education and employment opportunities. Through the Advancing Delta Talent initiative, CAEL is working with Arkansas State University Mid-South, a predominantly Black institution in West Memphis, Arkansas, and Coahoma Community College, a Historically Black Community College in Clarksdale, Mississippi, to expand career pathways and employment opportunities for adult learners in rural communities. Our collaboration with these colleges and other local partners is made possible by a grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL)’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA). Our partnership with the National Association of Workforce Boards (NAWB) resulted in the Advancing Equity Leadership Academy. Its inaugural cohort included the senior leaders of ten workforce boards from throughout the country, generating valuable insight on program development and policy change. Details about another CAEL cohort—the Latino and Adult Student Success (LASS) Academy—are also featured in the report. Comprised of Texas-based institutions, this second cohort of the LASS Academy has helped participating colleges engage more than 11,000 adult learners.
I am also proud of the policy and research highlights outlined in our impact report. Research has been ingrained in CAEL since day one. In fact, CAEL began life as a research and development project, and research remains critical in charting CAEL’s course as we navigate our second half-century. But I think I speak for all of us at CAEL when I say I’m most proud of the individual adult learner (and worker!) success stories we profile. The people behind these stories—and the countless others that occur every day—magnify our impact in ways that nothing else can. As a member of the CAEL community, you play a vital role in these stories and in our overall impact. I thank you for your continued support.
CAEL’s latest annual impact report can be viewed at cael.org.
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