Calbright is a statewide college with just over 8,000 students right now, and about 1,100 of them – more than one in eight – live in the Inland Empire.
The connections between Calbright and this California region, one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States, go deep. They were discussed recently on the IE Working Together podcast, in a conversation between President and CEO of the Inland Empire Economic Partnership (IEEP) Paul Granillo and Calbright President and CEO Ajita Talwalker Menon.
Two members of Calbright’s Board of Trustees, Jesse Melgar and Joseph Williams, live and work in the Inland Empire, Menon said. “They are deeply embedded in the work of education and philanthropy across the region and are really strong not just advocates but partners in this work. We’re looking forward to deepening this work.”
But what makes the connections effective, she said, is the way in which Calbright, which focuses on upskilling non-traditional students like working adults to find their niche in the economy, can tailor its course offerings to meet the needs of the region.
“Employers can only grow if they can find the skilled talent around them. And workers can only advance if education can fit into the realities of their lives,” she said. “We sit at the nexus of that talent marketplace.”
Granillo pointed out that for all its size, the Inland Empire “has one of the lowest baccalaureate attainment rates. And so for us, education is economic development.” It’s about the needs of “individuals who maybe have started their families, or are in the midst of starting their families,” who find the traditional education system isn’t designed for them, and won’t work with their needs.
That’s who Calbright serves.
Calbright is “absolutely focused on the adult students who are already in the workforce but need a different kind of educational opportunity to get that foothold in terms of economic opportunity and good jobs,” Menon said. “Our learners are 92% over the age of 25, one in four of them are actually parents or caregivers, and the median age of our learners is late 30s early 40s.” The college, fully online and with an innovative approach to letting learners study on their own schedules and at their own pace, is able to meet these populations where they are and support them in their search for better work.
“We fill in the gaps where traditional (higher education) models are incongruent with what learners are actually experiencing, both in the labor market and in the educational marketplace,” she added.
Granillo pointed out another connection: “You (Calbright) take deep dives into issues that are important to employers,” he said. “You appreciate the needs of the employer, and the pressures that are on the employer in today’s workforce, and how they need good partners in the education space.”
Businesses in the region are looking for skilled workers, he said. Perhaps it’s not surprising, then, that Calbright’s top three certificate programs for students from the Inland Empire are IT Support, Data Analysis, and Project Management. Programs which provide skills that growing businesses all need, no matter what their specific industry.
One of the region’s largest employers is the healthcare field, and both Granillo and Menon expect that Calbright’s new Community Health Worker program, developed in tandem with healthcare staffing agencies and SEIU-UHW, among other partners, will help the industry thrive by creating local talent pools to fill high paying jobs.
“We’re aligning multiple sides of a need people are experiencing,” Menon said. “Whether it’s on the employer side, whether it’s on the worker side ensuring that the jobs we’re preparing people for are also good jobs, family sustaining jobs, we are making sure we understand the key points that help people demonstrate their employability.”
