CAEL Information

CAEL was founded to help organizations succeed by providing expertise, resources, and solutions that effectively support adult learners as they navigate on- and off-ramps between education and employment. We partner with entities across the adult learner ecosystem to help create actionable career pathways along the journey of lifelong learning and meaningful work. Our Vision Every adult can navigate lifelong learning and career pathways that fuel social mobility and community prosperity. Our Mission CAEL engages with educators, employers, and community leaders to align learning and work so that adults achieve academic and career success and their communities benefit from broad economic growth. Our History CAEL was founded in 1974 on the principle that adult learners should be met where they are and that their experience in getting there can create college-level learning. It may be hard to imagine today, but at the time, adult learners were on the sidelines of postsecondary education. Largely overlooked within the “first time, full time” mindset that prevailed then, they were expected to fit their schedules around what higher ed had to offer, not the other way around. As CAEL led a paradigm shift toward recognized learning and became a catalyst for increasing the quality of postsecondary education for all students. To complement its pioneering work to support adult learners and learning recognition, in the 1990s CAEL expanded its mission to include workforce development and the mutually beneficial links between curricula and careers that are so vital to the success of learners and the communities they live and work in. Through collaboration with educators, employers, and community leaders, CAEL’s nonprofit mission has become a national movement. Today, CAEL supports adult learner success at at more than 300 postsecondary institutions, employers, and government agencies in the U.S. and abroad.