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Belk Center launches Adult Learner Lab to ‘help colleges scale what works’

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Courtesy of the Adult Learner Lab at the Belk Center

The Belk Center for Community College Leadership and Research announced the launch of the Adult Learner Lab (ALL) last week, a new “national hub for research, innovation and systems transformation focused on adult learners,” according to the ALL’s website. The Lab will collaborate with postsecondary institutions across the state and the country as well as funders and state agencies to advance strategies that improve outcomes for adult learners.

“By bridging actionable research with on-the-ground practitioner collaboration, this expanded work will offer North Carolina’s higher education leaders evidence-based practices and strategies to better serve our adult learners and strengthen our state’s workforce,” Belk Center Executive Director A.J. Jaeger told EdNC.

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The ALL is committed to supporting adult learners and devising creative solutions to the “unique challenges adult students face,” according to a press release. To guide this work, the ALL has three commitments:

  • Reducing Time to Credential: Elevating strategies that shorten the path to graduation, such as expanding credit for prior learning, offering flexible scheduling and streamlining academic advising.
  • Ensuring Credentials of Value: Championing educational pathways that align directly with high-demand regional labor markets to foster economic mobility and family-sustaining wages.
  • Providing Personalized Supports: Sharing and scaling best practices in tailored onboarding, public messaging and robust wraparound services that meet adult learners where they are.

The ALL is designed to work with all types of groups — both two-year and four-year postsecondary institutions, system agencies, state government, and other funders. Because of the unique needs and interests of these groups, partnerships with the ALL can take many forms.

“Examples of partnership might look like college leaders taking the adult learner guidebook to their executive team to facilitate conversation about how to implement promising adult-learner focused practices,” Sarah Deal, director of research at the Belk Center, told EdNC. “For a state it might look like asking us to help evaluate and support their implementation of adult learner reentry efforts.”

Deal also emphasized her excitement at the opportunity to learn from other states so that their innovations could potentially be brought back to North Carolina.

You can explore the Belk Center’s FAQ about how to get involved with the ALL here.

Read more about adult learners

‘A natural next step’

The ALL is not the Belk Center’s first foray into supporting adult learners. In 2021, the John M. Belk Endowment launched NC Reconnect in collaboration with the Belk Center and other organizations. The initiative aims to increase adult learners’ reenrollment in North Carolina community colleges.

In the 2024-25 school year, adult learners — or those ages 25 and older — comprised more than half of the students enrolled at North Carolina community colleges. According to research from the Belk Center for Community College Leadership and Research, adult learners often balance their studies with employment, caretaking, and other responsibilities that accompany adulthood.

NC Reconnect now serves 29 community colleges in North Carolina.

Courtesy of Belk Center for Community College Leadership and Research

“The Adult Learner Lab is a natural next step in the Belk Center’s commitment to adult learners,” Emily VanZoest, a visiting research scholar at the Belk Center, told EdNC. “Through NC Reconnect, we have seen how powerful it can be when a college redesigns its systems with adult learners at the center. The Adult Learner Lab builds on that momentum by creating a dedicated hub for research, evaluation, and creation of practical tools that help colleges scale what works.”

The ALL’s website lists ways to support the lab’s efforts, including funding research and evaluation, supporting the development or tools and resources, and championing the ALL’s findings.

“Adult learners are essential to the strength of our communities and our workforce, yet postsecondary systems aren’t always designed with their lives in mind,” said Jaeger. “By advancing evidence, improving lives, and advocating for adult learners, the ALL will partner directly with colleges, funders and state agencies to create environments where adult learners build futures that work for them.”

Editor’s note: The John M. Belk Endowment supports the work of EdNC.