Friday Follow Up
Calbright’s Cost Problem, Workforce Pell’s Fine Print, and Improving ED's Data
Phil Hill
March 06, 2026
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It’s time for some follow-up items from previous coverage.
Calbright College Crossroads
Calbright College is the fully-online competency-based California Community College launched in 2017. I have covered this story at e-Literate, PhilOnEdTech, and here at On EdTech over the years, and in general I have been critical of the original assumptions, the initial leadership, and the initial course design. I also noted the improvement in management and somewhat reset expectations from 2021.
This week the Legislative Analyst Office (LAO) gave a report on Governor Newsom’s proposed 2026-27 budget as it relates to the community colleges, including his proposal to increase ongoing Calbright funding from $15 million / year to $53 million / year. That is a major increase. The question is whether Calbright has shown enough progress to justify it.
While Calbright did not forecast enrollments in its original plans, it did plan for 22,400 job placements from its programs by the end of year 7 (Summer 2026). I called out in 2017 what I thought was a more reasonable estimate based on enrollments, not completions or job placements.
What this points to is that for a new fully-online institution to get to some meaningful level of enrollment (let’s say 20,000) in the same ballpark as these comparison schools, I estimate it would take a full decade at the least. This is the reason, by the way, that Mitch Daniels and Purdue University made the Kaplan University deal even though Kaplan’s enrollments are dropping. Daniels did not want to wait a decade to get to meaningful enrollment numbers for an online college serving working adults – if everything works out, within a year Purdue will have a fully-online institution serving 30,000+ working adults. That is a big if, by the way.
Calbright is in striking distance of the Phil Hill plan (another two full years at current growth rates would get them there). However, the completion rates are currently 13.6 percent based on its accreditor’s metrics, and the 22,400 plan is unreachable—Calbright might hit 1/10 of that goal.
Note the improved performance since the 2021 leadership change, which goes well beyond a Covid bump. Also note that Calbright is serving student populations in targeted age groups (working adults, older than 24) at greater rates than the overall system.
