Calbright has developed unique models of adult online higher education that allow students to study at their own pace, and on their own schedules, while getting the support they need.
That model is increasingly cited as an industry leader, and so it’s not surprising that Calbright staff, from President Ajita Talwalker Menon to Calbright faculty and members of our research teams, are invited to make presentations about it at conferences, and share what works.
But figuring out what works requires a lot of research, and a lot of data.
One promising approach to support adult online learners is “Pace and Progress Timelines,” in which students determine when they’d like to complete their Calbright program – a few months? Eight months? Longer than a year? – and set their milestones on that timeline. Faculty and staff then work with students to make sure they’re achieving their milestones and sticking to their plan. If problems come up, Calbright faculty and staff are already on hand to offer support and assistance. If a timeline needs to be changed, it can be: It’s the student’s goals that matter, and the student’s education is adjusted to fit their life, not the other way around.
Recently, in order to better understand how students’ actual performance compares to these self-selected goals, two members of Calbright’s research team, Logan Rowland and Rebecca Poon, spoke about Calbright’s time-to-completion analysis and how this research can be used in supporting students with self-directed timelines at the 2026 RP Conference, a gathering of research and planning experts from the California Community College system. The questions they were addressing from their community college colleagues: If your students can set their own timeframe to complete their program, with no pressure, how close to their goals do they get? How well do students who complete their programs stick to their timeline?
Most importantly: Once we understand a student’s goals, how can we deepen support around the learning environment that will help the student meet them?
“We don’t want to follow the traditional educational model of applying the same time-based standard or metric to all students, because we know some students have more time to dedicate to coursework than others,” said Poon, a Research Data Manager at Calbright. “But this is uncharted territory. How can we define time-to-completion metrics at the institutional level in a way that takes students’ unique goals into account?”
Rowland and Poon’s research shows that while many students who jump in intending to finish their programs as quickly as possible do succeed, a number of them also overestimate the time they’ll be able to dedicate to their studies due to work, family, and life responsibilities that require unexpected or more time.
Data shows that the median time students take to complete a Calbright program is eight months. But of students who set their personal timeline to complete their program in under six months, 60% of completers meet that goal. An additional 15% take six to eight months to complete, and another 25% take more than eight months.
On the other hand, students who give themselves a lot more time and expect to take longer, are often pleasantly surprised.
Of the students who completed, those who plan to take 10 to 20 months to complete their program are often finishing much faster than their own timelines. Of Calbright graduates, the typical student who plans a long timeline like that completes their program in seven months.
“I think it’s a positive sign that students who have prepared for longer completion timelines are able to complete faster than they’ve anticipated for themselves,” said Rowland, who has been leading time-to-completion analyses at Calbright.
This is great news for students, but also useful research that Calbright can use to refine and improve its approach to timelines and student support.
“Are we giving the students the right structure to allow them to complete their program in their intended timeline?” Rowland said. “Is there a timeline offering that could be better shaped to support students who want to complete quickly? We can refine the data, and the questions we ask, to see if there are areas they’re struggling with or issues that often come up for these students. We can iterate new interventions, to see what helps.”
Also good news: Calbright’s program time-to-completion rates are generally equitable, with few statistically significant “gaps” in how long it takes different groups to complete their programs.
“We don’t see major differences between our students’ time to completion, based on key demographics,” Rowland said. “We’re not seeing a difference between race and a student’s time to completion, or their higher education level and their time to completion,” for example.
There is a small but statistically significant difference between male and female average time-to-completion in Calbright’s IT Support and Data Analysis programs, and small variations in the time students of different age groups take to complete those programs – and those gaps will be investigated with an intention to eliminate them. But on the whole, initial research shows Calbright’s programs have equitable results – a key goal in a program that is intended to be for all Californians, from every walk of life.
This kind of research “is a pulse check for Calbright,” Rowland said. “First it tells us whether we’re succeeding in our mission, and then we can dive deeper with more nuance to find ways to do it better.”
In a constantly changing economy, where education should be accessible to everyone, it matters that Calbright never stops iterating. Never stops improving. Research like this is how it happens.
