More graduates, more partnerships, and more proof of a strong and measurable impact were highlights of Calbright’s 2025-2026 fiscal year. The College’s 2026 Annual Report to the California state Legislature details achievements in equity and innovative online pedagogy for working-age adults.
“Calbright’s start-up period has been defined by rigorous innovation, operational scaling, and measurable economic impact for students,” the College’s President and CEO Ajita Talwalker Menon said. “We have successfully transitioned from an ambitious initiative into a leading institution actively serving learners across diverse labor markets and regions.”
By the numbers, Calbright had a strong year. At the end of the fiscal year, Calbright had 8,083 actively enrolled students and 2,563 graduates, reaching populations typically underserved by traditional higher education. Additionally, the College’s student body for 2025-26 showed:
- 26% of Calbright students are parents or caregivers
- 92.3% of Calbright students are over the age of 25
- 73.2% of Calbright students identify as BIPOC
This demonstrates that Calbright is living up to its purpose of making a high-quality college education accessible to more Californians from all walks of life.
While significant, these results are not a surprise: Calbright’s enrollment had already been rapidly growing, even during periods when most of higher education was seeing a downturn, and the diversity of its student body has been an ongoing indicator of success.
Other, newer, results reinforce this success. For years, Calbright has had anecdotal evidence from surveys showing that students and graduates were overwhelmingly happy with the education they had received. But 2025-2026 was the first year that Calbright was able to use data to quantify student outcomes. Results showed that students who completed their program and had reportable wage data saw a $10,400 median increase in annual earnings.
That kind of success is just one reason that more leading organizations are seeking Calbright out as a strategic partner, and the 2025-2026 year saw many partnerships emerge. The past year saw Calbright partnering with the College Futures Foundation, California Competes, the Inland Empire Economic Partnership, SEIU-UHW, Riipen, and more organizations to determine how California can scale flexible education for adult learners. Additionally:
- The college launched a new partnership with national data trust CredLens to track comprehensive student employment and wage outcomes after program completion.
- Calbright entered a three-year pilot program with North Orange Continuing Education to co-design scalable pathways that transition adult learners from noncredit to credit-bearing programs.
- Calbright is actively collaborating with the Rural County Representatives of California to ensure that flexible, online workforce programs are directly mapped to the unique economic realities of California’s rural communities.
Calbright ended the fiscal year with a full five-year renewal of its accreditation with the Distance Education Accreditation Commission, and also reached a new milestone when nine of its courses across three programs were reviewed by the American Council on Education, and earned credit recommendations – creating a vital bridge to higher-education transferability for Calbright students.
“As we look ahead,” Menon said, “we are uniquely positioned to meet the rapidly evolving demands of our workforce, confident that the model we have built will continue to redefine economic mobility for millions of Californians.”
