Rize Education: 2024 Year in Review

The growing Rize team recently moved into a bigger office space and welcomed 45 colleagues to NYC for the annual Holiday party. The team is very happy to report that the new soundproof call booths mostly drown out my incessant screaming during Zoom meetings.

During last year’s Holiday Party, we deemed 2023 Rize’s “best year yet.” 

This year, Kevin Harrington (Rize’s CEO and resident wordsmith) declared 2024 Rize’s “best best year yet.”

So what exactly does a best best year yet look like? We’ve shared some of the highlights below.

If you want to go deeper, please register for our Year in Review webinar in January!

And what better way to start the new year than subscribing to Rize Up?

Growth in Programs & Students

During 2024, there was significant growth in Rize programs and course registrations:

• 600 Programs Approved (110 New Programs)
• 8,202 Registrations (64% YoY Increase)

Working with our partners on ~600 collaborative programs, we are now collectively serving over 8,000 student registrations. By zooming out another year, the growth is even more striking. Student registrations have increased ~3x compared to 2022 and ~8x compared to 2021. If you want to dive deeper into how we’ve grown, check out our 2024 Impact Report published earlier this year.

New Offerings + Refreshed Programs

The menu of Rize programs expanded in 2024 with several notable additions:

• Rize’s new MBA Specializations have already been adopted by 15 institutions just 6 months after launch. The bulk of this growth came from existing Rize partners, highlighting the trust current partners have in the quality of courses and services offered through the consortium.
• AI Literacy and Applied AI were adopted by 22 institutions during the Fall semester, including several institutions that added AI Literacy to their General Education or Business Core. AI for Everyone attracted 165 students in its inaugural semester and received excellent student feedback. 
• Rize’s instructional design team partnered with our curriculum committees, subject matter experts and teaching institutions to materially update Digital Marketing, Computer Science and Cybersecurity. Rize is committed to ensuring all programs remain market relevant and prepare students for the changing labor market.

Looking ahead to Fall 2026, we are exploring expanded offerings in Accounting, Finance and Criminal Justice. If you have any ideas or interest in these particular programs, let’s talk!

Expanded Team

Now I get to brag about my amazing colleagues. How did we achieve the results above? We added incredible talent across all verticals, including the significant expansion of our Partner Success and Instructional Design teams.

Partner Success: Our growing PS team is entirely dedicated to maximizing the value of our partnership together through enrollment and student success. This year we were fortunate to add Bob Stewart, Hannah Malowitz, Alena Rajwani, Audrey Warters, and Winnie Brandfield-Harvey to the team.

Instructional Design: The instructional design team also grew at Rize, allowing us to continue ensuring curriculum and curriculum design delivered to students is top quality. Meet Francesca Violich Kennedy, Steven Lance, and Steve Rogers!

New Ways to Engage with Rize

Before wishing you relaxation and merriment, a plug! Rize has been eagerly attending conferences, meeting with industry leaders and producing content for our partners. See below for some greatest hits from 2024, as well as a list of conferences you can find us at early next year:

Rize Up (Subscribe Here): Practical, actionable advice for small colleges from the business world. We added over 1,000 subscribers in our first year! Top posts included:

1. Building a Synthetic University
2. The Residential Campus Experience is Magical
3. When Systems Beat Technology: Why Smart Boards Become Expensive Chalkboards

Blogs: Nearly 5,000 campus leaders came to our blog this year to read content about innovating academic portfolios, achieving enrollment growth, and building the hybrid campus of the future. Top posts included:

1. Why Every College Needs an AI Program and How to Get Started
2. The Online Student’s Hierarchy of Needs: Rize’s Framework for Online Course Design
3. Why You Should Prioritize Starting New Academic Programs

Podcasts: myself and Kevin Harrington co-hosted several EdUp Experience podcasts, including:

1. Scott Pulsipher, Western Governors University, President
2. Ross Allen, Bethel University, President
3. Dr. Susana Rivera-Mills, Aurora University, President
4. Dr. Mary Hawkins, Bellevue University, President

Early 2025 Conferences: 

1. January: CIC Presidents Institute (San Antonio, TX); CCCU Presidents Conference (Washington, DC)
2. February: ACCU Annual Meeting (Washington, DC)
3. April: AGB National Conference on Trusteeship (Chicago, IL), ASU + GSV (San Diego, CA) and the HLC Annual Meeting (Chicago, IL).

Thank you all for another great year. We are deeply appreciative of your partnership. Happy holidays and we look forward to growing with you in 2025!