#GreatNonprofit Alert! Austin’s PelotonU is Rethinking College Education
“Navigating college is difficult and expensive…What if there is a better way to earn a degree?”
PelotonU
PelotonU provides a personalized pathway for working students to graduate from college on-time and debt-free by blending competency-based education with in-person support.
What do they do?
PelotonU helps working students graduate from college on-time, debt-free, and on their own schedule by blending competency-based education with in-person support. They’re designed to remove the three major barriers to a college-level education for working students:
- costs they can’t afford,
- schedules that don’t work for them, and
- learning outcomes that lack rigor and applicability in the workplace.
The cost of college through PelotonU is $5,500/year without any hidden costs or fees, and 70% of students can cover this full cost with their Pell Grant, costing them nothing to join the program. Once a part of the program, students take one class at a time and get free access to:
- Focused work-space
- In-person mentors
- Valuable community (of other working-students)
Why does it matter?
In Texas, only 28% of students pursuing Bachelor’s degrees graduate on-time and only 16% of part-time students graduate in four years or less.
This means that without PelotonU, working students like Clay are subject to a staunch uphill battle to actually get a degree and use it to their benefit without spending an excess of time and money.
“College is supposed to be an economic equalizer, but it too often becomes another place to sort people based on their network or resources.”
So if a college degree can only be attained by a certain group of people, those on the outside looking in — the part-time, working students that PelotonU specifically serves — have few options to improve their economic situation, given the impact our “level of education” has on basically everything that matters.
PelotonU means more education for those who want more education, without the often detrimental costs associated with traditional college. And that’s a good thing for all of us.
Is Education important to you?
Here’s how you can help:
- Check out their website
- Share this article
- Subscribe $5/mo
