California’s Calbright and Innovation Dilemma

Wayne Bovier, CEO of Higher Digital, shares his response to a great post by Phil Hill covering Calbright College, California’s new-ish college. Phil’s article offers great insight; however, Wayne shared another perspective: Innovation starts at home! 

This quick article is in response to another great post by Phil Hill covering Calbright, California’s new-ish college. Phil’s article is well worth a read offering lots of great insight; however, there is another perspective I’d like to add that was not addressed part 1.

As way of short background, Calbright was started as a way for the state to become more “innovative” by making access, affordability and completion easier for California residents. California decided that a brand new, online only institution was the answer.

However, a key (possibly fatal) oversight and under appreciated fact is that California has 114 fully accredited community colleges offering most, if not all, of their certificates/programs online. To varying degrees, these colleges have been pursuing innovative ideas for years throughout the system with many of them delivering more measurable outcomes than Calbright.

Innovation starts at home! Most times, innovation and change happen with what you already have instead of looking outside for inspiration. I applaud the desire to innovate and transform, but California already has an outstanding California Community Colleges and UC system to accomplish this. What needs to happen now is that the state and each college needs to figure out how to overcome the obstacles to accelerate their innovations and outcomes across the entire system and state.

Read Phil’s article here. 

Full disclosure: California Community College system is an active client of Higher Digital.