Voices of Modern Campus: What’s New in Lifelong Learning

As enrollment pressures and learner expectations reshape higher ed, continuing education and workforce programs have become essential drivers of institutional growth. Institutions that take the lead in this evolving era are building lifelong learning into the core of their strategy. 

In this edition of Voices of Modern Campus, Chad Rowe, Vice President of Product, discusses the challenges institutions face in serving lifelong learners, where product innovation is headed and what true long-term partnership looks like in practice. 

With more than two decades at Modern Campus, Chad brings in-depth insight into how technology can help institutions expand access, drive revenue and adapt with confidence in a rapidly changing landscape. 

Here’s what Chad has to share. 

In our Workforce & Community product, we will be rolling out significant platform and security enhancements in 2026.  

In our Extended Education product, we are modularizing our code base to facilitate future development and enable a faster velocity of developing new product enhancements. As part of this work, we’re also developing a UI refresh of the Extended Education Staff View, which I’m very excited about. It directly impacts the institutional teams who rely on the system every day. This will bring a fresh, modern look to the application that our institutional staff use every day.   

3. How does Lifelong Learning support today’s multi-generational learners across different motivations and pathways? 

Chad: One of the things that makes Lifelong Learning unique is the diversity of learners it serves. Lifelong Learning supports a wide array of audiences and modalities across today’s multi-generational learner lifecycle – from Gen Z to Baby Boomers. 

• Youth programming and summer camps for children 

• Pre-college programs  

• Adult professional development with upskilling and reskilling 

• Corporate and contract training 

• Senior programming for personal enrichment  

In particular, Lifelong Learning Extended Education supports many delivery formats, such as courses, programs and even conferences. 

Few areas of higher education span as many generations and motivation as lifelong learning does today.  

 

4. How do you ensure Lifelong Learning stays grounded in the real complexity institutions navigate every day? 

Chad: By listening to our customers. It may sound simple, but meaningful listening has to be intentional. We have many channels for customer feedback, including product ideas, forums on our support portals and regular Office Hours through the Product Team sessions. We also have many in-person engagements with customers throughout the year, including site visits and our annual user conference.  

One of the most popular programs at our last few user conferences was our Product Success Labs, where customers could book dedicated time with our product leaders to share feedback and brainstorm solutions.   

5. Can you share a recent example where customer insight influenced product direction? 

Chad: We routinely schedule Customer Working Groups to bring together like-minded institutions that are interested in discussing a common topic. In a recent session, we discussed the introduction of new features to support international sales tax in the Lifelong Learning Extended Education product. Knowledgeable customers informed us that in many international jurisdictions, it’s required to show an estimate of sales tax on the item description page. We have since accommodated that requirement in our design vision.   

It’s a good example of how collaboration sharpens our thinking and strengthens the platform.  

6. Beyond go-live, what does long-term partnership look like from your perspective? 

Chad: For me, partnership goes far beyond system uptime. When we talk about long-term partnership, success isn’t measured by whether the system is “up.” It’s measured by whether the institution is continuously advancing its goals—and whether Modern Campus is meaningfully helping them do that.  

Here’s what success looks like through a Modern Campus lens:  

• The platform becomes mission-critical, not just operational  

• Outcomes improve year over year  

• Our relationship evolves from vendor/customer to strategic partnership 

• Our customers experience continuous adoption and value expansion  

• Shared accountability and trust 

7. Looking ahead, where do you see the biggest opportunity for Lifelong Learning to help institutions operate with more clarity, confidence and resilience? 

Chad: The biggest opportunity for Modern Campus to help institutions sits at the intersection of decision-making, coordination and adaptability across the learner lifecycle.  

Institutions are navigating fragmented systems, siloed teams and constantly shifting priorities. Lifelong Learning has an opportunity to act as the connective tissue, bringing structure and visibility to areas that are often opaque. That means a single trusted view of courses, programs, enrollments, outcomes and financials. We want to enable confident, data-informed decisions, not reactive ones. We want to help institutions build resilience to challenges caused by enrollment volatility, funding pressures, changing learner demographics and staffing constraints.  

Resilient institutions aren’t the ones with most resources; they’re the ones that can adapt quickly. Lifelong Learning supports resilience by allowing institutions to create and update courses, programs and policies without an IT lift. We also support entering new markets such as corporate training, international, youth, senior and conference programming through add-on modules and configuration. 

Our goal is to make adaptability a built-in capability, not something institutions have to scramble to create.  

Ready to strengthen your lifelong learning and workforce strategy? 

Every enrollment represents a critical “GO” moment when a learner chooses to invest in their future. 

Connect with our team to explore how Modern Campus Lifelong Learning can help your continuing education and workforce programs drive sustainable revenue and long-term adaptability.  

---

---

Last updated: February 24, 2026