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Work Colleges – Making Students and Colleges Work

My latest piece on Forbes.com discusses work colleges – the type of institution where students take a critical role in operations and serve the college in exchange for reduced or even no tuition.

Read the full Forbes article here.

Here is a summary!

Rising costs and uneven career readiness continue to challenge U.S. higher education. One proven answer is hiding in plain sight: America’s work colleges, institutions that integrate work–learning–service so students develop professional habits while materially lowering the price of a degree. The Work Colleges Consortium (WCC) describes a small group of mission-driven liberal-arts colleges where every residential student works a campus or community job as part of the educational program. (Work Colleges Consortium)

Among the best-known examples is Berea College in Kentucky—tuition-free since 1892. All students participate in the Labor Program, typically 10 hours per week, documented on a separate “work transcript,” with aid structured so students receive scholarship support rather than taxable wages. The model underscores the dignity of all forms of work and connects labor progression with growing responsibilities over four years. (Berea College)

Missouri’s College of the Ozarks—often nicknamed Hard Work U—requires students to work 15 hours weekly during the term (plus designated work weeks), applying those hours directly to a “tuition assurance” amount alongside grants and scholarships. Work assignments range across 80+ campus areas, including media, farm, and crafts, designed to build both technical and teamwork skills. (cofo.edu)

At Warren Wilson College in North Carolina, the Work Program combines a minimum of 10 hours per week on one of 70+ crews with formal supervisor evaluations, intentional skill-building, and a stated $3,000 per year contribution toward tuition. Alumni overwhelmingly report that the model improved their problem solving, communication, and job preparation. (Warren Wilson College)

Paul Quinn College—the nation’s first Urban Work College—adapts the model for a major metro context. Through corporate partnerships, students gain paid, resume-ready experience with Dallas-area employers; recent announcements highlight scholarship structures tied to internship placement and collaborations like the City Year partnership to expand paid service pathways. (Paul Quinn College)

The WCC currently lists member institutions including Alice Lloyd, Berea, Blackburn, College of the Ozarks, Kuyper, Paul Quinn, Sterling, and Warren Wilson—each tailoring the work-learning-service core to local context while meeting federal requirements for recognized work colleges. A concise overview from ACE notes that federal funds are allocated through the WCC, with colleges matching those dollars and complying with detailed reporting—an often-overlooked policy backbone that sustains the model. (Work Colleges Consortium)

The through-line across these campuses is simple and powerful: every student works, every job teaches, and every hour reduces net cost. Students graduate with substantive experience, professional references, and a documented record of responsibility—advantages that matter in both employment and graduate admissions. For families, the predictability of work requirements (typically 10–15 hours/week) and the direct offset to tuition and living costs can be decisive. (Work Colleges Consortium)

For readers exploring practical reforms that make college more affordable while upgrading real-world learning, the work-college model deserves a fresh look. It aligns incentives, builds community, and treats meaningful work as a central academic experience rather than a side hustle.

Read the full Forbes article here.

MBZUAI – Building Humanity’s Symbiotic Relationship With AI

My latest article on Forbes.com is entitled “MBZUAI – Building Humanity’s Symbiotic Relationship With AI” – and is about a new AI-only university in the UAE. Abu Dhabi’s Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) was founded in 2019 as the world’s first university dedicated entirely to advancing science through AI. Led by founding president Eric Xing and provost Timothy Baldwin, MBZUAI is scaling rapidly—expanding departments and faculty—and is already ranked among the global top 10 in multiple AI fields. The university sits within a national push to build human capital and world-class AI capacity.

On the research front, MBZUAI’s Institute of Foundation Models—working with partners in the UAE—recently introduced K2 Think, an open-source model for advanced reasoning. It builds on a family of regional models that includes Jais (Arabic), NANDA (Hindi), and SHERKALA (Kazakh). The emphasis is clear: develop capable, efficient systems while serving language communities that are often overlooked. Baldwin underscores the opportunity to make a difference by engaging local language communities and addressing real needs.

This applied posture extends to public-value projects. MBZUAI recently hosted the first cohort of AIM for Scale, a collaboration with the University of Chicago that helps governments in low- and middle-income countries adopt AI weather models and build national services. Participants came from Bangladesh, Chile, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Nigeria, reflecting the university’s focus on climate resilience and agricultural preparedness across the Global South.

Undergraduate education is now a core pillar. In 2025, MBZUAI launched a Bachelor of Science in Artificial Intelligence with two specializations—Engineering and Business—built on an AI and computer science core plus cross-disciplinary training in business, finance, industrial design, market analysis, management, communication, and the humanities and liberal arts for ethics and human factors. A “co-pilot” educational model integrates AI throughout the student journey, with problem-solving and critical thinking emphasized. The inaugural class includes 115 undergraduates from dozens of countries (about 25% from the UAE). The university admitted nearly 700 students across all programs in 2025, representing 47+ nationalities. Undergraduates spend their final year in co-op roles at top AI companies and research labs; students receive full scholarships with stipends, housing, travel, and health benefits. Faculty leaders describe a studio-like culture that evolves with the field, including startup development and investor-graded pitches, guest speakers up to a Nobel laureate, and hands-on exposure to building and safeguarding large models.

All of this aligns with the UAE’s AI vision. The UAE National Strategy for AI 2031 aims to make the country a global hub, targeting substantial contributions to non-oil GDP. Supporting infrastructure includes a new Stargate UAE data center—developed with leading partners—featuring over a thousand servers and up to 100,000 NVIDIA chips, with power needs on the order of 1 gigawatt.

Read the full Forbes essay: “MBZUAI – Building Humanity’s Symbiotic Relationship With AI.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanpenprase/2025/10/27/mbzuai–building-humanitys-symbiotic-relationship-with-ai/

University Honors Colleges – Providing Excellence Within Scale

With the cost of attendance at some private universities now topping $250,000, families and students are searching for ways to access a transformative college experience without taking on unsustainable debt. One of the most promising innovations in U.S. higher education is the rapid rise of the University Honors College — an approach that merges the intellectual vitality of a liberal arts college with the scale and resources of a major research university.

The Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University in Tempe Arizona

Honors Colleges are structured as selective living-learning communities, typically housing 1,000–2,000 students who pursue a more personalized and rigorous academic track. These students often enjoy small Socratic-style seminars, direct access to top professors early in their college years, and additional opportunities for study abroad, research internships, and alumni mentorship. Many also live in dedicated residential facilities that foster community and intellectual engagement. For families paying in-state tuition, these programs can deliver an experience comparable to elite private colleges for a fraction of the cost — for instance, tuition at Arizona State University’s Barrett Honors College is about $15,400 per year.

The growth has been striking. According to the National Council of Honors Colleges (NCHC), there are now 248 honors colleges nationwide, up from just 24 in 1994. Many have evolved into fully developed academic units with their own deans, budgets, admissions standards, and governing boards. They frequently require an honors thesis or capstone project and offer unique general education curricula designed for deeper and more interdisciplinary learning.

Several of these programs are earning national recognition. Penn State University’s Schreyer Honors College, University of Georgia’s Moorhead Honors College, CUNY’s Macaulay Honors College, University of Virginia’s Echols Scholars Program, and Ohio University’s Honors Tutorial College each provide variations on the model — from Oxford-style tutorials to flexible curriculum pathways and fully funded cultural and international experiences. Some even offer financial incentives; for example, the University of Georgia’s Foundation Fellowship funds summer study at Oxford, while CUNY Macaulay provides full four-year tuition scholarships for in-state students.

This movement suggests a powerful reimagining of undergraduate education — bringing “high-touch” excellence and transformative opportunities into public institutions that can serve far more students affordably. By combining the personal attention of liberal arts colleges with the breadth and dynamism of research universities, Honors Colleges are helping higher education evolve to meet today’s financial and educational challenges.

For a deeper dive and a look at the top-ranked honors programs, read my full analysis on Forbes:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanpenprase/2025/09/30/university-honors-colleges–providing-excellence-within-scale/

More Startup Universities Can Revive US Higher Education

For US higher education to survive as a system, there needs to be balance between older universities and colleges, and new “startup” institutions. More of these “green shoots” are needed within the higher education ecosystem. Only handfuls of new 4-year institutions are being founded as a multitude of older institutions compete for dwindling numbers of students. A recent report by the Postsecondary Commission (PSC), an organization founded by Harvard professor Stig Leschly in 2020, provides a detailed portrait of new colleges in the US. The report identified 1,039 new colleges founded since 2000, with a wide range of institutional missions and degree offerings. Most of these new colleges are specialized, with 78% offering 1-year specialized vocational certificates instead of bachelor’s degrees. Overall, 74% of new colleges are for-profit institutions, and only 14% offer 4-year degree programs.

Small but Innovative “Startup” Universities

The PSC report notes that 98% of college students attend a college that is more than 20 years old. Within the sample are 153 new 4-year accredited bachelor’s degree institutions, 112 private non-profit institutions, 30 private for-profit institutions and only 11 public institutions. Some of the innovative non-profit private 4-year “startup” institutions, include the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, which has reimagined engineering education through emphasis on interdisciplinary design studies, and also has eliminated departments,  Soka University of America, which offers a distinctive liberal arts education based on Buddhist principles of peace and human rights, College Unbound, which is reinventing higher education for underserved adult learners, and the Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, the first independent science and technology focused nonprofit university established in Pennsylvania in over 100 years, and Minerva University (enrollment 656), founded by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Ben Nelson to compete with the best universities using a proprietary online platform. 

You can read more about this in my new piece at Forbes.com at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanpenprase/2025/09/26/startup-universities-provide-innovation-to-revive-higher-education/

The Aspire Leaders Program – reaching a million future leaders to change the world.

From a seed of inspiration at Harvard Business School, the Aspire Leaders Program has become a global movement empowering first-generation and low-income students. Founded by Professors Tarun Khanna and Karim Lakhani, and nurtured through the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Aspire has grown from an experimental program in Dubai in 2017 into an independent nonprofit—the Aspire Institute—with nearly 500,000 alumni worldwide.

Through innovative online modules, transformative in-person experiences, and regional hubs (“Foundries”) in places like Lahore, Delhi, São Paulo, and Istanbul, Aspire is building a global community of young leaders ready to tackle challenges from digital transformation to climate change. With a bold goal of reaching 1 million students annually by 2027, Aspire is demonstrating how education, mentorship, and opportunity can change lives at scale.

I just published a full article on this amazing program on Forbes.com—read it here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanpenprase/2025/08/31/the-aspire-leaders-program-from-harvard-inspiration-to-global-movement/

Aspire Leaders Alumni gathering at the Peru Alumni Meetup & Expert Talk with Miguel Montalvan (social media influencer) and Gabriel Gonzales-Daly (Head of Page Executive Peru) on June, 14 2025. The Aspire Leaders Program has over 2,000 alumni from Peru. Image credit – Aspire Institute

BYU Pathway Worldwide and the 3-year degree movement

Higher education faces mounting pressures of cost and access, and BYU-Pathway Worldwide is leading a bold solution: fully accredited three-year bachelor’s degrees available globally for as little as $6,300. My new article on Forbes.com discusses both the BYU Pathway program and the growing momentum for new 3-year degree programs. Building on decades of experimentation with accelerated programs, BYU-Pathway now serves nearly 75,000 students from over 180 countries with flexible online courses, stackable certificates, and a model that combines affordability, employability, and community support. Graduates gain job-ready skills, cross-cultural teamwork experience, and entry into global companies like Amazon and Microsoft. With support from accreditors, state governments, and the College-in-3 movement, BYU-Pathway’s approach signals a reimagined future of higher education—accessible, accelerated, and designed for the realities of today’s learners.

BYU-Pathway Worldwide students in Lagos, Nigeria gather in March 2024. Enrollment in Nigeria surged from 6,603 students in 2023 to 11,724 in 2024. Photo: BYU-Pathway/Darby Simon

The Greenway Institute – Building a New Business Model for Transformative Engineering Education

My new Forbes.com piece discusses how The Greenway Institute – a new university in Vermont – is making transformative engineering education more affordable. Greenway will develop a new business model for engineering education and pioneer a new form of coop education in which students are able to spend more time working in real-world environments while earning their degree. My new piece includes details of the new university based on an in-depth interview with its inaugural president and co-founder Mark Somerville, who was also a founder of Olin College of Engineering.

An aerial view of the Greenway Institute campus in Montpelier Vermont (Image from Greenway Institute).

Several other new STEM-focused institutions have recently been founded, but without the same focus on developing a more efficient financial model. Olin College of Engineering, founded in 1997 with gifts of $460 million from the F. W. Olin Foundation, developed a new curriculum centered on project-based learning and user-centered design. The Roux Institute at Northeastern University, backed by tech entrepreneur David Roux and by the Harold Alfond Foundation, with two $100-million gifts is another example. A new STEM-focused higher education institution is planned for Bentonville, Arkansas, to offer STEM and business education for its planned 500 students. Greenway, by contrast, will use a lower-cost form of coop education in which students spend two years working on actual engineering projects while learning their subjects, and will also create a new and more efficient engineering curriculum, inspired by Olin College and other new institutions. The full article is available at this link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanpenprase/2025/07/24/the-greenway-institute–making-engineering–education-affordable/

Celebrating Global Citizenship and Interdependence on Independence Day

In my new piece in Forbes.com on global citizenship education, I emphasize the need to not only celebrate our nation’s independence on July 4, but to consider the interdependence that underlies our prosperity and the ideas of global citizenship necessary for us as a human family to solve the problems of the world.

Cookie030307, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

My Global Citizenship education piece explores the meaning of global citizenship and cosmopolitanism, based on ideas from Greece and Rome, the African concept of ubuntu, and in the Buddhist ideas of compassion and interconnectedness. Global Citizenship education is urgently needed to solve global problems, and the piece provides examples of global citizenship efforts at Soka University of America, Haverford College, Duke University, Webster University, Stanford University, and other leading US institutions. Let’s use our Independence Day to not only celebrate our nation’s independence, but also its interdependence on the other nations and cultures of the world.

Graduation Season and the True ROI of Education – Transforming Lives and Communities

My new piece on Forbes.com, entitled “Graduation and the ROI of Universities – Transforming Lives and Communities,” dives into the deeper meaning of the ROI for higher education. Across the country, many students have recently graduated. Researchers often cite the “ROI,” or return on investment, which states the benefit purely in economic terms. College education across all majors returns multiples of the costs for tuition and fees from increased earnings throughout a career. The ROI for college degrees at a public institution in 2021 was $174,000 after 10 years and $714,000 after 20 years. Over longer horizons, the return on investment exceeded $1,000,000 in all degree categories. Graduation speeches across the country feature celebrities, politicians, and intellectuals to give hope and inspiration to new graduates. But perhaps the most inspirational part of graduation comes in the stories of the graduates. In my new piece in Forbes.com, I review the economic return from a college degree, and also share stories from the commencement ceremonies of Soka University of America (SUA), featuring 127 students, and at Arizona State University, which includes over 20,000 students and families, as well as the Starbucks SCAP ceremony. For both the largest and smallest universities, the return on investment comes in the form of students who deeply understand their role in communities and give back to those communities in innumerable ways. The impact of transforming these students and their communities is also impossible to quantify.

The 2025 Commencement ceremony at Soka University of America in Aliso Viejo on Friday, May 23, 2025. (Photo by Watchara Phomicinda/ Soka University of America)

The article also shares stories from Soka University of America – where I work. This includes a quote from Orlando Bloom’s address at the SUA commencement describing how SUA’s founder Daisaku Ikeda told him, “The playwright August Strindberg wrote: ‘The actor must control the role and not let the role control him.’” Ikeda continued, telling Bloom, “The important thing is to remain true to yourself … You don’t define yourself solely in terms of your profession as an actor, or your work — that world is not enough for you, for you are dedicating your life to others.” This quote is a great encapsulation of the deeper meaning of both higher education and one’s work in life.

Memorial Day Reminds us to Make Veterans Feel Welcome on Campus

During the recent Memorial Day weekend, in addition to enjoying holiday barbecues, we should remember the sacrifices of our veterans in fighting for freedom and democracy.  Since the GI Bill was established in 1947, the US has generously given benefits to veterans to recognize their service, and the veterans also give back to the campus communities they have joined. And yet, with the complex paperwork requirements and confusing hurdles from both universities and the federal government, veterans often struggle to claim and maintain their hard-earned benefits. A new company, known as Milvet Navigator, is helping. You can read about this and the larger picture of veterans in higher education in my recent Forbes.com piece, which is entitled “From Service To Success: Making Veterans Feel Welcome On Campus.” Milvet Navigator, founded by Dr. Mahdi Omar and Paul DeCecco, a 29-year Army veteran, helps veterans and campuses navigate through regulatory complexities with new software systems. These systems also free up campus certifying officials to have more time to make these veterans feel welcome. Helping these veterans navigate their way back into life after military service, and making them more welcome on our campuses is the best way we can thank them for their heroic service to our country.