The game continues to change in continuing education. Demand has shifted. Online and PCE units now serve a wide diversity of learners who don’t fit the traditional definition of a student. That mix now includes adult learners, corporate audiences, alumni, government, and municipal workers, along with many others.
At the same time, expectations are evolving. Learners increasingly expect CE programs to deliver clear pathways to careers.
These learners are multi-generational. They’re often re-skilling, caregiving, and working all at once. Continuing education needs to fit into their lives with flexible, accessible programs that lead to meaningful career outcomes.
Across the sector, practitioners have fully embraced this new reality: workforce alignment is the goal.
The question is: what’s it going to take to get there?
The 2026 State of Continuing Education Report, produced by Modern Campus in collaboration with UPCEA, CAUCE and The EvoLLLution, dives into this question. It surveyed leaders from across the continuing ed landscape in North America about their main priorities and challenges—giving a data-driven snapshot of the trends driving continuing education today.
Now in its sixth year, the report showed strong growth in workforce-aligned programs, with a record number of institutions adopting microcredentials, stackable credentials, and industry-aligned credentials.
Despite this progress, the data highlights several execution gaps that stand between CE leaders and their goals. While the survey shows strong institutional buy-in for online and PCE units, it also highlights barriers to delivery in administrative burden, technology integration, and talent and human capacity.
Let’s break it down:
Delivering flexible, career-aligned programs across the entire learner-to-earner lifecycle is a tall order. To meet the moment, online and PCE units need both institutional buy-in and cross-unit collaboration.
For many, the buy-in is there: about 79% of respondents agreed that their online and PCE unit has the support from senior leadership needed to scale—a number that’s held steady since 2024.
At the same time, a significant number (41%) said that continuing education is still siloed across multiple units, schools, or colleges at their institution. When asked whether other units collaborate on continuing education offerings, 62% agreed or strongly agreed—a drop from 71% last year.
Only 13% of those surveyed agreed that their CE offerings were well-integrated with their institutions’ portfolio of traditional offerings, compared to almost 30% in 2025.
To launch flexible, career-aligned CE programs, institutions must do the hard work of breaking down silos and building true collaborative structures for program development and delivery.
The survey findings point to a persistent talent bottleneck: around 62% of respondents said that they lack the staff required to meet their institution’s goals for their online or PCE unit.
For certain positions, this gap appears to be widening. About 30% reported a shortfall in marketing positions, more than double last year’s survey. Nearly 22% of respondents said instructional design positions were lacking, an increase from only 9% last year.
When the survey asked continuing ed leaders about their biggest challenges in expanding credentials, almost two thirds noted the administrative burden involved. More than half said time-to-market was holding them back. They mentioned these concerns more than fears of program cannibalization or a lack of support from faculty or academic leadership.
For many, the gap isn’t in academic or faculty expertise. It’s in the capability to cut through bureaucracy and launch programs quickly—with the human capacity to make that happen.
Technology integration remains a stubborn friction point when it comes to CE program execution and expansion. Less than a third of the CE leaders surveyed said that their technology suite integrates seamlessly with the technology used by the main campus. While this number is steady compared to 2025’s survey, it highlights how online and PCE units are still often operating in a siloed technology environment.
Likewise for data visibility: only 39% of respondents were confident in being able to access real-time enrollment data for their online and PCE students—a decline from 48% last year.
Online and PCE units increasingly depend on granular, integrated data to make decisions about portfolios, marketing, and investment. As credentials become shorter and more tied to career outcomes, that need will only intensify. Institutions that can close this gap will be best-positioned to grow their offerings and compete in a fast-shifting environment.
The research makes a strong case that 2026 is the year ambition meets execution in continuing education.
Workforce alignment is no longer an “emerging” reality. It’s the dominant strategy.
The institutions that will lead in this next phase of continuing education won’t just align on strategy—they’ll operationalize it. That means connecting systems across the learner-to-earner lifecycle, reducing administrative friction, and giving teams the tools and support to move faster. It means turning data into decisions, and decisions into programs that reach learners where they are.
This is where the gap begins to close: not through incremental fixes, but through a coordinated approach that brings together technology, workflows, and people to deliver workforce-aligned learning at scale.
For institutions ready to move from ambition to execution, the opportunity is clear—and so is the path forward.
Access the 2026 State of Continuing Education Report to dig into the data and see how your institution compares. Brand new this year, the report offers an interactive web version as well as a downloadable PDF.
For more insights into the report's findings, check out our webinar where The EvoLLLution Editor-in-Chief Shauna Cox spoke with three continuing education leaders about how they're addressing execution gaps today.
Last updated: June 8, 2026