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Career education is a vital pipeline to high demand jobs in the workforce. Students from all walks of life benefit from the opportunity to pursue their career education goals and find new employment opportunities. Join Dr. Jason Altmire, President and CEO of Career Education Colleges and Universities (CECU), as he discusses the issues and innovations affecting postsecondary career education. Twice monthly, he and his guests discuss politics, business, and current events impacting education and public policy.
Jason Altmire [00:00:00]:
Hello, and welcome to another edition of Career Education Report. I'm Jason Altmire. Today, as our guest, we have the president of the American Public University System, Nuno Fernandes. And they are doing some incredibly innovative things with regard to digital delivery and AI. And they have a conference that's going to be coming up in the fall that we will touch on next. Nuno, thank you so much for being with us.
Nuno Fernandes [00:00:31]:
Thank you, Jason. It's my pleasure to be here.
Jason Altmire [00:00:34]:
I think a good way to start is, let's just talk about APUS, American Public University System. How long has it been around? What is the focus and the scope and the reach of the university?
Nuno Fernandes [00:00:48]:
So APUS has been around for more than 30 years, and it was originally created to serve the military. That's how we started. It was founded by a veteran, and that sort of military DNA still remains. We are today the number one educator of the US military and veterans. So in total, we have almost 90,000 students. We have over 155,000 alumni. Just recently, we had 18,000 graduates this year in the class of 2025. And we have students from the 50 states and from 80 countries around the world.
Nuno Fernandes [00:01:24]:
So it's a very large operation. We continue to be very much focused on serving those who serve. 65% of our students are active duty students. About 12% of them are veterans. And the remaining balance, which is about between 20 and 25%, are, you know, quote unquote, civilians. Right. So we've been, we've been expanding with civilians over the last years, which is interesting. But we've been expanding in a way that is sort of loyal to our DNA, which is that we offer certain benefits to the extended families of active duty and veterans.
Nuno Fernandes [00:02:02]:
So as you know, we have a preferential rate for active duty students, we have preferential rates for veterans, and we extend those rates to the extended families, meaning parents, siblings, children, and everyone that is directly related to the student or to the active doctor veteran. You don't have to be enrolled with APUS to get that benefit. As an active doctor veteran, we've been growing significantly with civilians, but we continue expanding with the other audiences. And like I said, we are the number one educator of military students and veterans, which we're very proud of.
Jason Altmire [00:02:34]:
And when you say number one in that context, I assume you're talking about in number of students, right?
Nuno Fernandes [00:02:40]:
Yes, sir. In number of, you know, in terms of TA usage for active duty. So the students that benefit from the tuition assistant benefits, we are the number one educator. And in terms of veterans, we are in terms of the GI Bill usage for education, we are also the number one educator of the veterans that use GI Bill for education purposes.
Jason Altmire [00:03:02]:
And importantly, when people think about serving veterans in higher education, I think people have an understanding of how that works. But you have a huge number of active duty military, which you just mentioned. How does that affect your course programming and the types of offerings that you have for students?
Nuno Fernandes [00:03:22]:
Well, in the very beginning, if you go back 30, 25, 20 years, our offering was very much created for military purposes for military students. Over time, we've been expanding our portfolio significantly. Today we have almost 200 programs and you can find pretty much everything. You can find programs that are more military driven, more focused on national security topics, or more focused on cybersecurity. But we also have marketing MBAs, masters in finance programs that are more customary to have in other universities. So today we have a very extended and wide portfolio that serves the military veterans, but also, like I said, the civilians. One thing that is interesting about epos, I believe, Jason, is that when we say that we are veteran friendly, we really mean that and we show that because we have a preferential discount for, for veterans. So if you are, if you are a veteran, you get a 10% grant for undergraduate programs and you get the 15% grant for graduate programs, and your family gets that as well.
Nuno Fernandes [00:04:32]:
Even if you're not enrolled with AP west, you could be enrolled in any other university and your families will benefit from that.
Jason Altmire [00:04:37]:
And these programs are offered through your digital delivery?
Nuno Fernandes [00:04:42]:
Yes, we are 100% online, which is the normal world. I like to say that we're moving into a more digital model, but yeah, we are 100% online.
Jason Altmire [00:04:53]:
Do you have a sense of where your students are located?
Nuno Fernandes [00:04:57]:
We have students from the 50 states. So they're all across the country. Literally from all across the country. We have a certain concentration of students close to the military installations for obvious reasons. But the latest class we just had at commencement, we had students graduating from 50 states.
Jason Altmire [00:05:15]:
Do you have students overseas serving, especially the active duty?
Nuno Fernandes [00:05:20]:
Yes, sir. Both actually. So we have students that are deployed. Right. So they are overseas. But we also have students that are, let's say, quote, unquote, true international students. And like I said in the beginning, we have currently students from about 80 countries around the world. The number is not significant in terms of, let's say, the overall population.
Nuno Fernandes [00:05:41]:
Right. We might have five students from country A and seven students from country B, but we do have students from 80 countries around the world. And then we have a lot of us active Duty students that are deployed also around the world.
Jason Altmire [00:05:56]:
And I asked that question because you are the fifth president of APUS. I believe you started in 2022.
Nuno Fernandes [00:06:04]:
Yes, sir, September 1st.
Jason Altmire [00:06:06]:
And before that, you had extensive experience in higher education, but also international education. I think it's. It's useful. Can you tell the audience a little bit about your background and how that plays into the way you approach your role today?
Nuno Fernandes [00:06:21]:
Yeah, my background is a bit different than what I would say most presidents have. And I don't say that to say that it's better or worse. I'm just saying that it's. That is different. I started, you know, my background, my original background is in finance. That's what I studied originally. But. But I always work with sales, marketing, and product management.
Nuno Fernandes [00:06:41]:
In the beginning of my career, I spent 10 years working for a German company called Bosch. You might have heard about it. You know, car parts, home appliances. A very large, very, very large German company, one of the largest in Europe. And I spent 10 years with them, living in different parts around the world and having different. Different jobs. That's actually how I came. I came to the US as the senior vice president of marketing for Posh in North America for one of their divisions.
Nuno Fernandes [00:07:09]:
And after 10 years with the company, I was approached by a headhunter in Miami, where I live, looking for a chief marketing officer for an education company. And this education company was some sort of a OPM and online program manager, but they also had schools that were owned by this company and all of them overseas. And, you know, it's interesting, Jason, because until that moment, you know, I never really thought about education as something that you could promote, that you could market. You know, it was never something I thought about, you know, working with marketing and education. But then during the interview process for that company, I started thinking about the impact that education had in my family and my parents, their first generation. I was born in a very small village. I always tell this story of 200 people in Portugal, and my parents didn't know how to read or write. My grandparents didn't know how to read or write.
Nuno Fernandes [00:08:05]:
So my parents were the first ones that graduated. And that having access to education transformed their lives. Right? So they, you know, my father became a lawyer, my mother became a teacher, and consequently, my life was transformed as well. And I know that if they haven't had access to education, I would probably still be living in that small village. And there's nothing wrong with that, but my life would be vastly different. So I was fascinated by something that I never thought about which is interesting, which is how much education can impact your life. So I decided to accept the job. And I started as chief Marketing officer working for that company.
Nuno Fernandes [00:08:45]:
We had activities in about 12 countries around the world. In many of the countries, we were the first ones to bring online education to the market. And eventually I became the president and CEO of that company. And along the way, I became very, very passionate about education, about expanding access to education so that a lot more people could benefit from the same thing that my family benefited from. So I've always been involved with affordable, accessible, quality education and, and mostly in the online format. And as you all said In September of 2022, I was very honored with the invitation and I became the fifth president of American Public University System.
Jason Altmire [00:09:29]:
And when you talk about access to education, especially for people from disadvantaged backgrounds, the digital delivery system is a huge part providing that access. And that's what AP US is known for and does so well. And maybe you can talk about what is the student experience? How does the student engage in their digital communities? What's the future? What does it mean for faculty and student support services? And how can it deliver education beyond just the traditional brick and mortar setting that many people might think of when they're thinking of higher education?
Nuno Fernandes [00:10:09]:
I am a big believer that higher education needs to face some fundamental changes over the next years and decade. And I think that the most important challenge that higher education is facing is the cost of tuition. And the cost of tuition has increased about 300% in the last 20 years on average. Why is that? The reason for that is that your admin costs and your infrastructure costs on a traditional brick and mortar university, they grow faster than your enrollment grows, so your cost grows faster than your revenue. And therefore, like Adam Smith said, there's no free lunches, so someone has to pay the bill. So when you start increasing the infrastructure of your brick and mortar university, with nice stadiums and sports team and swimming pools and gyms and all these things that are fantastic and they certainly deliver an incredible experience to the students, but they are not central to the education in itself. I mean, the education that occurs inside the classroom has nothing to do with having a nice swimming pool, right? Or having a nice gym. These are things that are fantastic if you can afford them.
Nuno Fernandes [00:11:21]:
But my point is that at some point someone has to pay for that. And usually that cost is transferred to the student or to the taxpayers, right? So what? The only way, I believe, to really solve this is with technology. Technology is the only way that will allow us to scale not only the delivery cost, but to scale the quality. And I always give you an example, Jason, that I believe that for, you know, for the audience that is listening, it's kind of very. Can illustrate what I'm trying to say. So if you would go, you know, if you go back 20 years in time and you go to Blockbuster, right? Then you would go and you get one DVD and you'd pay $15 back then, right? And then you. You could watch one DVD and then you would have 24 hours to return it. Otherwise, you pay a late fee.
Nuno Fernandes [00:12:08]:
And, you know, usually you get one or two on Friday night or Saturday night and things like that, and that's it. And you'd pay 30 bucks plus the pop card, and then. And then, you know, next week you'd repeat that. And then, you know, Netflix came about, and now you can pay $15 per month, and you can watch unlimited programs, almost like unlimited series and limited movies for the same price that you were paying for one DVD 20 years ago. So it's hard to argue that Netflix is not a better product. In fact, it's so much better that Blockbuster went out of business and Netflix is thriving, right? So it's hard to argue that Netflix is not a much better product because it allowed for the consumer to have a lot more quality, a lot more access for a much lower cost. And I think that technology in education will be able to do something similar. So in our case, we have an online model that I would say is sort of the traditional online model, but we're transforming it into what I call a digital model.
Nuno Fernandes [00:13:07]:
So the traditional online model that most universities have has been around also for about 30 years. As I said, I'm one of the few that believe that education is not changing fast enough. I think it needs to change faster. There's a lot of conversations today about AI and how much education is changing. And I said, that's fantastic, but I think it's actually not enough. And the reason why I say that, Jason, is because our students, and the younger they are, the more factual this is. Our students are surrounded daily by incredible digital experiences. Their television on their phones, the way they do banking, the way they date, the way they do exercise, the way they.
Nuno Fernandes [00:13:47]:
They watch movies, the way they listen to music, the way they shop, the way they game, everything is an incredible digital experience. And when they come to higher education, they will expect nothing less than that. They will expect also a great digital experience. So we believe that embracing AI and embracing technology is a fundamental part of the experience that we want to provide to our students, while at the same time it allows us to continue to scale our cost and to continue to improve our quality. So let me give you an example of how this works in real life. So, transfer credits. We know we got a lot of students that come with transfer credits, right? They can get transfer credits either from prior courses they've done in other universities or from their work experience. So we have a very robust transfer credit policy.
Nuno Fernandes [00:14:35]:
But the process of evaluating the credits was pretty much manual. So there's someone that looks at the papers and then that does the matching, and he's going to say, jason, you have nine credits. And that process usually takes anywhere from two to five days. But we are implementing an AI tool that's going to do that in seconds. So for the student, think about this. For the student, instead of having to wait three to five days, now that person can get the answer, let's say minutes. And you can do that in a much more effective and friendly manner. Another example of how to use AI is with mental health services.
Nuno Fernandes [00:15:15]:
We offer mental health support 24. 7 to all our students, staff and faculty. And we offer that through an app. It's a company from London. They have the app available in 25 languages, and it's powered by AI, but also has real people in there. But you can have support at any time. Wherever you are around the world, you can have support 24. 7 in any language of your preference.
Nuno Fernandes [00:15:38]:
So imagine for us with 90,000 students, how many people would need to hire to offer mental health support 24. 7 in 25 languages? I mean, I don't know, but maybe 500 or something like that. And here to technology, we can do that in a much better and efficient manner. Another example that we're doing that we're working now with our academic team and our provost is leading this is we're doing a lot of exciting content using AI. In terms of video production, for example, video production used to be incredibly expensive. I remember in 2016, I was working with one of the Ivy League universities in a special project, and the person I was working with told me that they were spending something like $200,000 per course in video production. But today that $200,000 can be pennies. Because you can have access to these tools if you know how to use them.
Nuno Fernandes [00:16:29]:
You can produce high quality videos for almost for nothing. So all these are examples of how you increase your quality while decreasing your costs. And I think it's always this balance of increasing the quality and decreasing the cost so that you can transfer those savings to the students and keep your cost of tuition incredibly affordable, but also more exciting. We have a tool that we are now piloting that allows you to translate your textbooks or your PDFs into podcasts. So a lot of people like podcasts, right? When I'm working out, I'm listening to podcasts all the time. So as a student, I assume that a lot of them also enjoy that. So if you say, well, I don't feel like reading this 25 page paper, but can you create a podcast? And then it's like two people like you and me are talking here, and then it creates a podcast with that content, which is a, a really interesting way of learning as opposed to, to reading. But all, all of this to say that I think that the direction we're going, Jason, is when I talk about the digital experience in education is that I think what is long, long past due in education is to create this personalized experience because each student is a bit different, right? Each student learn in its own way.
Nuno Fernandes [00:17:51]:
Each student, you know, some like to read, some like to listen to podcasts, others like to see videos. Why is it that the experience is exactly the same for every student? It doesn't make sense. It's one of the few services where it's still sort of one size fits all. So what I think technology will allow is for you to personalize the experience, to continue to reduce the costs and to continue to pass that low cost to the market so that you can continue to keep your tuition really, really affordable. So that's sort of the principle of what we're trying to do here.
Jason Altmire [00:18:21]:
I think you explained that about as well as I've heard anyone explain it, because everyone is thinking about and in some ways struggling with how to implement AI and what it means. And when we were having these discussions two years ago, it was all about misuse of it, students cheating. It wasn't about how can instructors and institutions use AI to personalize the student experience, to use it as a positive disruption disruptor in higher education. And you said it perfectly that students accept this and expect it in every aspect of their life. Every other way that they're going throughout their day, they're dealing with technology, they're dealing with AI. Higher education should be no different. So hopefully we're evolving to a place where the concept of digital learning, of online education is not viewed as substandard or somehow different in a negative way. It's now positive.
Jason Altmire [00:19:23]:
It's what students expect. It's moving towards the future. And with that said, how can universities Stay competitive and relevant with things changing so rapidly, and in particular, how does AP us set itself apart?
Nuno Fernandes [00:19:40]:
I think you need to recognize the urgent need for change, because if we don't, we risk becoming less relevant. Not APOs. I mean, as an industry, higher education, we need to recognize that change, that, that change is coming. It's interesting you mentioned the dilemma, and we've had this discussion inside apus extensively about AI usage with students, because there are different perspectives, right? Some, some faculty, they might say, well, I don't agree at all with that. Some faculty might say, well, no, I actually agree with that. And some others might be in the middle. And our approach has been incredibly, I think, modern and sophisticated. And our provost is fully aligned with my thinking, and my thinking is her thinking and her thinking is my thinking.
Nuno Fernandes [00:20:31]:
We're fully aligned on this, which is if you don't promote, not only that you allow, but if you don't promote the usage of AI inside the classroom, you're doing a disservice to your students because students, especially the type of students that come to AP West. But I would argue that most students in any school, the reason why they go, you know, they pursue higher education degrees because they want to get a job or because they want to get a better job, you know, a large, large number of students in any sort of category of higher education, the reason why they're doing this, because they want to go to the job market once they complete their studies. And when they go to the job market, they will be exposed to AI tools, most likely. So if, if, if you don't really teach them, if you don't motivate the usage of those AI tools, they will have a disadvantage when they get to the job market. So we believe that we are training students for the real world. You know, training students for real applications where you want them to have the academic context, where you want to have a great quality education, but you also want them to be experienced with the tools that are out there where they can thrive and they can differentiate from the other. So we were one of the first ones, I believe, to adopt an AI policy where we say it's allowed, you can use it. We actually like that, use it.
Nuno Fernandes [00:21:51]:
But you have to disclose it. You have to disclose that you have used AI to do this exercise or this essay or whatever it might be. So that's what our academic policy says, and I like that a lot because we are sort of embracing the needs of the market, which is what we do. An example I think, very telling, Jason, is, and I Usually have this photo in my presentations, which is. There's a photo that I really like. I think it's from like 1982 in North Carolina or South Carolina, which is a photo of professors outside a university sort of protesting because they didn't like calculators. You know, they didn't want calculators inside the classroom. So that didn't go very well for them, did it? Because, you know, it's sort of the same example, but worse, right? Because why, if.
Nuno Fernandes [00:22:41]:
If you have a calculator and you study finance, why would you not use a calculator? Because once you graduate, for sure you're going to use a calculator. Nobody's going to be doing manual calculations, so you might as well use it. What's the problem if the tool is there available for you and those. You know, there are people that were complaining about computers and that were people complaining about Google, and there's always someone that will complain about something. But we need to remain focused on what we're trying to do here. And what we're trying to do here is to provide a fantastic education, a great experience, hopefully fun, but also that is relevant for when they go and try to get a job and to compete in a process that requires interviews and their world. They will be asked, what do they know and what don't they know? So to answer your question, I hope that as an industry, you recognize that there's an urgent need for change. I think that higher education has been facing a trust crisis for.
Nuno Fernandes [00:23:35]:
Not recently, for over a decade at least. In many cases, that distrust is unfair because the data actually shows that attending higher education leads to significant lifetime benefits. You know, more earnings, other, you know, more stable families, longer lifespans. There are all sort of variables that are positively related to having a higher education degree. But. But over the last decade, there's been some distrust. And I think that the model as it is is reaching the end of its life cycle. And I think it's had a very good run, but it's no longer sort of aligned with the expectations of today's learners.
Nuno Fernandes [00:24:15]:
So I think it's time to evolve. I think it's time to take higher education to the next level. I think it's time to create a truly personalized experience. I think the main struggle, we must believe as educators, that it is possible, not only possible, but desirable, to deliver great quality at a low cost. And that's what we try to do. We try to deliver a great product for a low cost. So I see our job to make education not Just more accessible, but also more exciting, more memorable, more meaningful, and to sort of deliver to the students what they're looking for.
Jason Altmire [00:24:50]:
With that in mind, continuing the thought leadership that you're expressing here, you're putting on a conference in October called AI and the Future of Education. That's a virtual conference. How would someone find out more about that?
Nuno Fernandes [00:25:04]:
Yeah, so it's our second annual AI Conference. We did the first one last year. It was incredibly successful. We had over a thousand people attending the conference, and I think from 20 countries around the world. We had some really nice key speakers. We had Laurie Glover from the center of Artificial Intelligence at mit, which is the largest AI lab, one of the largest AI labs in the world, and I think the largest lab, MIT. We had Congressman Ober NTI from California. @ the time, he was in charge of the AI Task force.
Nuno Fernandes [00:25:36]:
I don't know if that's still the case, but, you know, it was interesting to see from a policy perspective what they were thinking. It was a bipartisan effort. We had people from Arizona State University, from other many other universities presenting their work. This year is going to be October 16 and 17. And, you know, they can go to APU and we're going to have information published there and they can register. It's free. So we hope to have the audience attending the conference this year. It's October 16th and 17th.
Nuno Fernandes [00:26:10]:
We're still working on the final list of speakers and the final program, but I'm sure it's going to be great.
Jason Altmire [00:26:15]:
Again, our guest today has been Nuno Fernandes. He is president of AP us. Nuno, thank you for being with us.
Nuno Fernandes [00:26:24]:
Thank you. Jason.
Jason Altmire [00:26:28]:
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Career Education Report. Subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. For more information, visit our website at career.org and follow us on Twitter @CECUED. That's C-E-C-U-E-D. Thank you for listening.