The Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL)

Mission & Communities Served

Recognizing that adult learners are the backbone of the U.S. economy, CAEL, a national nonprofit membership organization established in 1974, helps forge a clear, viable connection between education and career success, providing solutions that promote sustainable and equitable economic growth. CAEL opens doors to opportunity in collaboration with workforce and economic developers; postsecondary educators and trainers; employers and industry groups; and foundations and other mission-aligned organizations, engaging with these stakeholders to foster a culture of innovative, lifelong learning that helps individuals, and their communities, thrive.

Key Services & Programs

CAEL Provides

• Consulting and program support.
• Capacity building.
• Platforms and tools.
• Membership and events.
• Industry-education partnerships.
• Research and other thought leadership.

Examples include: 

Career pathways development: CAEL partners with educators and employers to create career pathway and competency maps that lay out navigable routes to continual success within key sectors. These maps benefit workers as well as employers, integrating entry-level, mid-level, and senior-level occupations. By highlighting competencies that qualify workers for progressively rewarding occupations, the pathways provide valuable insight to employers and workforce developers seeking greater efficiency in recruiting, upskilling, and retaining workers.

1. EPCE and NACTEL: CAEL administers the Energy Providers Coalition for Education and provides management services and learning resources for the National Alliance for Communications, Technology, Education and Learning, also serving as the organization’s fiscal agent. These organizations bring together private and public employers, educators and trainers, contractors and suppliers, industry associations, unions such as IBEW and CWA, and workforce investment boards to support industry-tailored online programs, from microcredentials to advanced degrees. Since EPCE’s founding, more than 7,200 students have enrolled in more than 41,000 courses, and the coalition encompasses more than two-thirds of the industry workforce across all 50 states. NACTEL’s educational opportunities are available to more than 2 million workers in the sector.
2. Credit Predictor Pro: CAEL's web-based credit for prior learning resource helps colleges and universities streamline the CPL process and increase its reach, guiding students through the process of documenting their work-based and other experiential learning and enabling a more seamless link between learning and work.
3. Adult Learner 360: Is an integrated diagnostic tool informed by layers of complementary data. It combines decades of aggregated CAEL research with surveys of faculty, staff, and adult learners completed during each iteration with participating institutions.

Success Story / Impact

CAEL created an apprenticeship-degree pathway that reimagines the college vs. trade school debate from an “either/or” limitation to a “both/and” opportunity. College critics point to tuition that is rising faster than inflation, prompting many students to shoulder debt loads that take a lifetime (or longer) to pay off. They warn about the gap between what students learn in their classes and what they need to know to advance in their careers. Short-term credentials and competency-based hiring are gaining traction as alternatives for appraising talent. Advocates for college completion argue that degrees remain the best proxy for overall workforce readiness. They highlight the persistent correlation between educational attainment and lifetime earnings, evidence, they say, that college builds universally prized and transferable "essential skills" like communication and problem solving.

But there is no reason why theory and practice can't come together to create the best of both worlds. That's exactly what the Machinists Institute, Renton Technical College, and CAEL accomplished. CAEL led a collaboration to create a fully integrated associate degree and registered apprenticeship program. The pathway allows students to simultaneously complete a registered machinist apprenticeship and an associate of applied science in multi-occupational trades. Under the Machinists Institute-RTC partnership, 100% of students who complete a registered machinist apprenticeship also attain a degree.

The concurrent degree-apprenticeship model transforms complex crossroads into parallel pathways, connecting learners and workers to good jobs in the near term while lining them up to achieve longer-term academic and career goals. While new apprentices may not want -- or need -- to immediately possess a degree, as workplace changes accelerate, so do the reasons for keeping options open. When former apprentices do seek degrees, they often face transfer and enrollment challenges when trying to stack an apprenticeship into a college degree program. Assuming they do enroll, along with the financial burden I mentioned earlier, college takes a toll on another limited resource: free time. A concurrent degree-apprenticeship saves both.

Attaching a degree to an apprenticeship program also helps dispel potential concerns about forgoing college for an apprenticeship program. Echoing the false alternative inherent in the degree vs. skills debate, existing stigmas can unfairly portray apprentices as "not good enough" for college. The Machinists Institute-RTC pathway, which was carefully vetted for academic rigor, proves them wrong.

Concurrent apprenticeship-degree pathways also offer compelling organizational advantages. They entail constructive collaboration among colleges, employers, unions, and other workforce partners. Such engagement is essential to ensure academic curricula are aligned with latest industry training needs. The apprenticeship-degree framework also enhances total compensation packages. By offering a no-cost degree, they emphasize that apprenticeships are education benefits. Such perks are powerful recruiting and retention tools and can even boost productivity.

Concurrent apprenticeship-degree pathways are a path forward to a brighter future for the entire education-employment ecosystem. They offer a much-needed model for scaling apprenticeships at a time when they are expanding to include fast-growing sectors such as education, health care, and technology. In fact, there is no reason these pathways shouldn't be embraced across the country to benefit employers, higher ed institutions, and most importantly, apprentices themselves.

Why We Joined MUS

Long before "workforce alignment" and "skills-based hiring" became higher-ed buzzwords, CAEL was building the infrastructure for it. Since its founding in 1974, CAEL has worked to reframe the “academic vs. vocational” paradigm. Workforce development organizations like Midwest Urban Strategies provide critical complementary support to that mission. Together, we are replacing zero-sum silos with parallel pathways and advancing an understanding that education and employment are two sides of the same coin—a coin that can and must be the currency of the ever-evolving knowledge-based economy.

How MUS Membership has Benefited Our Organization

CAEL's partnership with Midwest Urban Strategies adds multiple links to the network CAEL is building to bridge gaps between adult learning and regional economic development. Direct coordination with multiple metropolitan workforce systems allows CAEL to scale its mission in new ways. Collaboration across distinct systems connected by common challenges creates opportunities for shared data resources, informs critical policy insights, and provides universal guidance on directing complex funding streams to where they can make the biggest impact on career pathways and their accessibility to adult learners and workers.

Partnerships or Collaborations Grown from Our MUS Membership

CAEL's partnership with Midwest Urban Strategies has helped launch MyCareerForward, which CAEL is piloting in Pittsburgh as its signature platform for creating and sustaining a universally beneficial talent development ecosystem. MyCareerForward marshals the collective capacities of regional partners in support of the ALICE (asset limited, income constrained, employed) population. MCF’s toolkit includes credit for prior learning, career navigation support, stackable credentials, and learning and employment records. A real-time data dashboard will ensure continual visibility of key MCF performance indicators, from learner engagement to credential use to labor market outcomes.

Fun Fact

CAEL's president, Earl Buford, helped found Midwest Urban Strategies! Buford was CEO of Employ Milwaukee, which led the unprecedented partnership that brought together 12 urban Workforce Development Boards across seven Midwestern states, marking the launch of the Midwest Urban Strategies consortium. Later, as CEO of Partner4Work, he was instrumental in adding Pittsburgh as a Midwest Urban Strategy member city.

Secondary Contact Person/Title:
‍Carlo Bertolini, Director, Marketing and Communications‍

Secondary Contact Phone:
‍(312) 499-2600‍

Secondary Contact Email:
‍cbertolini@cael.org