The Exchanges

Q So you've done this as a mission-driven model. You decided to go the for-profit route. Can you tell us a little bit about how you decided that? Because it makes sense to me. A lot of people, when they think of this mission you're describing, they would assume you're doing a non-profit. Like, what, why, why for profit?

A Well, um, So, you know, we, we were building a software business at the time when I sort of got obsessed with the, the low completion rate problem and the low faculty wage problem, um, of community, uh, community college and higher ed. And, um, I just, I got to know a bunch of great people in Silicon Valley who care a lot about solving these kinds of problems, yourself included, you know, some of our, our other friends and, um, and, um, you know, it's funny, like Bloomberg Ventures was our very first backer. Mm-hmm. I got to know those people really well, because they cared about just the software problem we were originally solving. I couldn't get past the front door of Bloomberg Philanthropies. Like, I don't know anyone in that world. You know, like, my mother always, always likes to say, we do what we can. Where we're at today with what we've got. And so sort of like the, the, the tools that I had was like, I know venture capitalists who, who like to think about solving these humanity level problems and are looking to solve, solve them and build the next Uber or the next Airbnb, the next transformational, um, uh, company. And so, and so that was, that was where I leveraged. It's also like kind of, we kind of lucked into The reality that there's so much funding available as a for-profit entity, and it's really difficult to fundraise as a non-profit.

AI assessment note: “there's so much funding available as a for-profit entity, and it's really difficult”

Q What are some of the skills they're learning? What are some of the things they're coming to do?

A Yeah, business is our biggest program right now, so business administration. Um, it's one of the most transferable into a four-year, um, bachelor's degree, and so I think a lot of students focus on that. We're gonna be, you know, probably, like, usurping our announcement, but we're gonna be, um, launching our, our Fullstack Software Development Associates degree, um, pretty soon, which I'm really excited about. But, but generally speaking, I think It's students who want to build a great life and get great skills and, uh, either transfer into a four-year school to complete the bachelor's or get a great job right away. Longer term, we'll be investing more in things that require a physical component. So you think nursing, you think medical assisting, I think, you think welding. I mean, there's like really important things that our country has to have.

AI assessment note: “business is our biggest program right now, so business administration.”

Q Is it because they're not finding it useful for their lives? Is it because they're, they're too busy with something? What's going on?

A It's, it's definitely multifactorial. Like, there are some excellent community colleges. If you look at like what Miami-Dade is doing. If you look at what the City University of New York, um, is doing. If you look at Dallas College, there are definitely bright spots, but The reality is that, that most of the community colleges Sort of have this traditional notion of sort of sink or swim. It's all up to you. They don't really treat, um, students like their customers. And, um, and, and they don't have the resources to, to basically do what we in Silicon Valley call customer support. So like in, in Silicon Valley, if you're an enterprise software company and one of your big logo companies says, Hey, we're not renewing. It's like, holy.

AI assessment note: “most of the community colleges Sort of have this traditional notion of sort of sink”

Q And we were talking earlier, you're, you're an optimist, but you're, you're frustrated that things are broken. So part of your motivation for building campus is you're trying to fix things that are broken. Like what's, What's broken that you're working on?

A I always think, I always think broken is, is a little bit too vague and abstract to, like, describe things this complex, but what I'll say about our education system, specifically higher education in America, is that it It works exceptionally well for some people. Like, we can all point out, like, oh, this kid crushed the SATs. This kid got a full ride to Stanford. Like, those stories exist, but it doesn't work at all for a lot, a lot of people. And, um, and so it's like, okay, well, how do we make it work for everyone? Is sort of the, the way I like to frame it, and sort of the question that I always make us ask every day at campus. And so, specifically, who isn't it working for today? Our higher education system. Basically, um, if you look at, Cost. If you look at the cost of getting a bachelor's degree, if you like sort of map it out relative to like the cost of TVs, the cost of like even healthcare, the cost of pretty much like electronics, like goods, like every other aspect of the things we spend money on. It's just like massively driven up. In fact, there's like a chart you, you guys can.

AI assessment note: “if you look at the cost of getting a bachelor's degree”

Q And you've built on this model, because you obviously, you took these four principles from this successful school in New York, But you guys are online and offline as well, and you actually are using a network of like top adjunct professors, which I think is pretty cool. Can you tell us about that a little bit? Yeah.

A So on day one, we were like, okay, there's no point in trying to build, um, and scale up a community college if, if we don't have a great model that leads to higher graduation rates. And so we've basically been inspired by the ASAP model, and we do those, those same things. We also give our students free, um, math and writing tutoring. Some of them have deficiencies, like they went to a crappy high school, and we have to help fill those gaps. And then the other thing is, is instead of a MetroCard, because most of our students are fully online, we, we, uh, we give every student a laptop, and we pay about a third of their Wi-Fi, um, bills if their, if their Wi-Fi is too, too slow or unreliable. Um, but then, we've also noticed, like, this broader trend of, like, students, young people, even their parents, just getting disillusioned with higher ed. And there's, A massive problem with the way people perceive the quality of community college education. Um, generally, if, if you, like, the thought experiment I always tell people is, like, just imagine you're a high school senior on Admitted Students Day. Remember Admitted Students Day, where everyone wears, like, the hoodie of the school they're going to? Nobody wants to be the kid wearing the local community college hoodie, right? It's like, oh, you were too dumb to go to a four year school. Like, or, like, it's like, that's the way…

AI assessment note: “instead of a MetroCard, because most of our students are fully online, we, we”