Douglas Karr:       00:00          This is our first sponsored podcast and I wanted you guys to absolutely listen and know that we're doing this really different, and we've found an incredible partner on this as well. I have on the line with me, Michael Kelly, he is the co founder and CEO of FullStack PEO. Michael, thank you for joining.

Michael Kelly:      00:20          Thanks for having me Doug.

Douglas Karr:       00:21          Absolutely. And Michael and I, I think fretted over this. While you were on the show, I think maybe a year ago, and describing FullStack PEO and the services that you have to offer, but then as time went by we thought Off the Circle is doing some unique stuff from trying to tell those Indianapolis regional stories with business. And then of course, FullStack PEO is helping Indiana startups and growing tech businesses with our HR and benefits. And we kind of bounced back and forth, that this isn't just a blah, hey, pay us some money and we're going to do an ad for you. We really wanted something unique and Michael with your background, with dozens of startups and of course in this industry, I thought, you know, this might be a really good opportunity to get and glean some of your knowledge with each one of our podcasts. So that's a long introduction to our sponsorship. But I really wanted people to know how much we thought about and how important it was and I really do appreciate you taking the time.

Michael Kelly:      01:25          I am thrilled to be doing this. My only fear is that I'm out of nuggets of knowledge by like the sixth or seventh podcast.

Douglas Karr:       01:33          I have a feeling that will not happen. Well, and today we're talking to WGU Indiana, for people that don't know, that's a nonprofit national university, but they have a presence and they actually have Indiana headquarters downtown. And we were just talking, they really wanted to tell the story of WGU Indiana because it's really just this incredible solution for business people that are working, maybe have families or tied up, and they want an affordable degree program to go get their master's degree or business or a degree, and without all the overhead of a campus and all of those things with it.

Douglas Karr:       02:15          And being a nonprofit, WGU basically takes 100% of whatever you're paying in tuition and pushes it back into their systems. And I thought it was a really, really intriguing talk. And we talked beforehand about a tip for this, and one of the things that you really brought up was the ability to get people to help your business, right?

Michael Kelly:      02:38          I think for me, when we launched one of our first companies, we were very intentional about finding the right partners to do that. We still work with many of those partners today across a number of different companies. So I think one of the things to keep in mind is if you're out there thinking of starting a new business, there's a ton of people who can help from outsourced HR to accounting to very tactical things like marketing and events and things like that. So you don't have to do it all yourself.

Michael Kelly:      03:14          One of the places that I think not a lot of people are aware of is one of the resources we have, particularly here in Indiana, we're very strong small business development center, which provides free business advice to people who are looking to launch their businesses. Now the ISPDC spends a lot of time trying to help with funding and business planning and stuff like that, but they also know who all of the partners are in your community, who are going to be the go to partners who want to help you launch your business. So I think if you've never looked them up and you're thinking about starting a business or you've just started one, check out the ISPDC and see if they can help.

Douglas Karr:       03:52          I think that's incredible advice because if you go get your degree in, especially from a business related or master's in business, it's going to provide all the tactical and theoretical kind of ways that a company is working. But then you really have to pull in these partners for expertise. I've done it with, you know, obviously attorneys and sales coaches and like you said, HR and benefits, all of those pieces, you need to focus on your business and let these other experts focus what they're good at and what they're efficient at as well.

Michael Kelly:      04:24          Agreed.

Douglas Karr:       04:26          Fantastic. And, and Michael, for everybody listening, tell everybody about FullStack and the type of companies that you're looking to assist.

Michael Kelly:      04:34          Yeah, so at FullStack, we provide TurnKey HR for emerging companies. That's going to be everything from payroll benefits for 1K supplementary benefits, background checks, all of the things that you could possibly imagine from a people perspective. We focus on all of that so that your employees are taken care of so you can focus on scaling your business.

Douglas Karr:       04:54          That's fantastic. And for people listening, please roll back to the FullStack PEO podcast that we did on Off the Circle, where you can get really in depth information about everything that they offer and it really is unique. I don't think there's a lot of solutions out there, especially for a very small business to start up or a fast growing business for that matter. And a PEO is really a unique thing in Indiana that provides a lot of opportunities to any type of startup or tech business.

Speaker 3:          05:32          Listen to indie-based entrepreneurs and business people, learn from their experience and expertise, and have some laughs along the way. Off the Circle, the Indianapolis business scene as you've never heard it before.

Douglas Karr:       05:49          Oh, welcome back everybody to another Off the Circle. This is Douglas Karr, and I am in the brand new spanking offices, absolutely stunning offices, WGU Indiana and I'm going to go around the table here. We'll let people do their own introductions and tell people why you're important.

Jacob Brown:        06:10          My name's Jacob Brown, in addition to being a vice president of Fifth Third Bank here locally, I'm a proud graduate of WGU, master's in management and leadership.

Douglas Karr:       06:19          Oh, that's fantastic.

Alison Bell:        06:20          Yeah, so he's the most important one in the room [crosstalk 00:06:24]. Our alum, that's right. So I'm Alison Bell and I'm the chancellor of WGU Indiana.

Douglas Karr:       06:29          Fantastic. Tell us first about WGU Indiana for people that, I don't know that there's too many people that don't know, but.

Alison Bell:        06:37          You know, just in case, we like to, we like to tell our story. So WGU Indiana is Indiana's online, not for profit university, fully accredited, affordable, flexible, focusing on programs that are really good for adults who like Jacob, who wants to return and complete their degree. We're in our 10th year, so we launched in 2010, as WGU Indiana, which was the first state affiliate of a national online university. Western Governors University.

Douglas Karr:       07:11          Western Governors University.

Alison Bell:        07:12          That's right.

Douglas Karr:       07:13          What's the history behind Western Governors University?

Alison Bell:        07:15          So, as the name implies, a group of governors out West in the 90s started thinking about how they might come together to solve the issue of access to education, particularly their idea came from the need out West in those rural States where they had a teaching shortage, and they needed to educate teachers, but people were not able to access the brick and mortars. So that was one piece of the puzzle.

Alison Bell:        07:44          The other thing that they were talking about as the story goes, one of the founding governors leaned over to another founding governor at a graduation ceremony and he said, how did he know that these graduates really know what this degree says they know? And so from those concepts and those problems to solve this group of really innovative bi-partisan governors got together and created Western Governors University, which amazes me.

Alison Bell:        08:15          This started happening around 1995, and our official launch was in '97, and just if you think about what the internet was in 1997 to have these folks come up with an idea of a fully online university, and they launched it and we've just grown and grown since then. The bit about, do our graduates really know what their degree says they know? That where we came up with the competency based model.

Alison Bell:        08:46          So at WGU, we measure what you know and it's not connected to time in the seat. So in a traditional classroom, no matter how long you need or how quickly you could learn a subject, you still have to wait till the end of the semester to be awarded the credit at WGU, as soon as you can demonstrate your competency, then you earn the credit and you move on.

Alison Bell:        09:10          So that creates a model of education where we're able to say that our graduates like Jacob are competent in the areas that they need to be competent for the industry where they are working.

Douglas Karr:       09:25          That's fantastic.

Alison Bell:        09:27          And then they also, because of that flexibility and not being connected to time, our graduates also are able to complete their degree sometimes more quickly. It's a rigorous... And I think Jacob can speak to that. It's a rigorous program, but we at least create a situation where someone can move through more quickly.

Douglas Karr:       09:48          Well, I guess it rewards people too that have the work life experience, so that they can move faster than let's say a younger student that just entered into a university. That's incredible.

Jacob Brown:        10:01          And I think the ability to provide sort of the path to refresh knowledge in an area that you already have an undergraduate degree in my case, or the ability to start to finish and really be met where you're at from an educational perspective, both in your needs and in your work life balance in time and is very important. Having an undergraduate degree from a traditional four-year university and now a graduate degree from this program, it was a significantly better experience that I could dictate sort of the path and how quickly I was able to move through things. So I think that's important for people that are already out in the workforce that really want to increase or expand upon things they already have a foundation.

Douglas Karr:       10:50          I'm guessing because you don't have the traditional infrastructure of college campuses and buildings and the fact that you're a nonprofit that saves the student a ton of money as well.

Alison Bell:        11:02          Absolutely. That's another important piece because our mission really is about expanding access to higher education. So, that affordability piece is key. We do have this nice new office that we're able to work from, but we're a small team, it's not a huge office. We don't have a lot of facilities expenses across the country or in Indiana, so we're able to keep our costs low. Our tuition it's about $6,500 on average for an undergraduate degree per year, which is about half the national average of online universities. So we keep the costs low and we really reinvest a lot back into our students. Last year we gave away about $500,000 in scholarships in Indiana.

Douglas Karr:       11:45          Oh, that's fantastic.

Alison Bell:        11:48          I know, right? Free money.

Douglas Karr:       11:51          Let's talk a little bit about the experience. How is it different when you're entering an online campus, you know, if you will, versus a traditional and you've obviously been on both sides of that wall.

Jacob Brown:        12:05          I think the biggest difference is you have a mentor that's dedicated to you, a live person that's generally at the bare minimum in the same time zone, but normally pretty close to you that has either been through a program that you were in, or has a background in that program. And I've mentioned this before, but my mentor was Aimee Mullins, and I still talk to her and I've been done with the program for 90 days now. Just talked to her yesterday.

Jacob Brown:        12:34          And I think they are really, from my experience, vested in not only getting you through the program, but also helping you to manage the additional time commitment and constraints that happen when you're juggling personal and professional lives while trying to advance your education

Douglas Karr:       12:56          When you're taking your classes, is it, I'm guessing is a self paced kind of atmosphere, are you taking it with other people or is it between you and the coursework?

Jacob Brown:        13:10          I think it depends on the program, but inside the college of business, you know there's a few things where it is kind of coordinated team type efforts but pretty much everything else is really self directed, and you also have the ability to progress through it as quickly as your competency allows.

Douglas Karr:       13:24          That's awesome.

Jacob Brown:        13:25          There were courses where, especially things that were directly connected to what I've done professionally for the last 10 or 15 years, where I could write a paper and, or take an exam and display competency pretty quickly and then move onto something else. So that my time was spent on the areas where I really needed to focus versus as Alison mentioned, just sitting through a class because there's a class and you just have to get to the end point.

Douglas Karr:       13:56          What's the... And I'm going to keep going into experience just because I'm fascinated by this. Are you logging into a system and seeing your tracking and following where you're going?

Jacob Brown:        14:08          There's an app and there's a web portal and it allows you to track your progress. You get a fancy little multicolored chart that shows you where you're at on your degree plan. And so it's nice at a glance if you wanted to take a screenshot and send it to somebody when you get done it updates. When a class is approved for acceptance, you're onto the next thing and it updates and you can see exactly where you're at in real time.

Douglas Karr:       14:31          That's fantastic. And now I'm guessing, you have a family, you had a job.

Jacob Brown:        14:37          I do. I have a wife, and I have a nine year old and a four year old.

Douglas Karr:       14:41          And you just graduated 90 days ago.

Jacob Brown:        14:44          I did.

Douglas Karr:       14:44          So what was that work life, education balance like?

Jacob Brown:        14:48          I think for me personally, it's probably one of the reasons I think this is such a great program was unfortunately my wife had some major health issues that sort of came up all of a sudden shortly after I started this program and I was able to work through all of that personally and outside of the program, but also with my mentor to coordinate things.

Jacob Brown:        15:09          There's expectations of how active you are in the course and things like that because the engagement is important if you're going to retain what you're trying to learn and be able to demonstrate competency. But I mean, there were periods where I just couldn't, I just didn't have the time to do it. But we had conversations, we found alternative paths. And I think it's really about that one on one experience that from a student perspective that makes the program so successful.

Douglas Karr:       15:34          That's incredible. It almost sounds like that type of experience is unique. If you're-

Jacob Brown:        15:40          Very unique.

Douglas Karr:       15:41          ... going to a campus, you have to drive that experience, right? But it sounds like WGU is really doing it in the reverse that they're driving your experience.

Jacob Brown:        15:52          Yeah, I agree with that. And I, and I don't, I don't want to take anything away from my undergrad or traditional experience, I'm very deeply connected with the folks at IUPUI that I'm a proud alum there as well. I just think that given the option at this point in my wife, there wasn't really another program that probably would've worked for me had I been in another program when these personal things transpired, I don't know that I would have been able to finish.

Alison Bell:        16:21          I think that's really important and it's not unique. I often say to people that if it weren't for WGU Indiana, that there are many, many students who couldn't go anywhere. In so many cases, we're just the only option because of our affordability, because of our model. The combination of those two things, we're also not for everybody, so it's good that we have options. There are lots of good options in Indiana for students, but I just think it's so important for people to know about WGU Indiana, because I think that there are people, when they find out about us, they say, "Oh, this is something I can do." And I say that because I hear it all the time from our students and our alum, that this was the only way I could have gone.

Douglas Karr:       17:04          And you're not alone. You were telling me the numbers-

Alison Bell:        17:08          So we have more than, we're currently enrolled in Indiana, we have more than 5,600 current students, and we've graduated since 2010, We've graduated more than 7,500. So students and grads in all 92 counties in Indiana.

Douglas Karr:       17:23          That's fantastic. And I love hearing that too. We chatted a little bit before the podcast about some of the challenges of the outlying areas that don't have access to campuses. And so this is their-

Alison Bell:        17:34          This is it.

Douglas Karr:       17:35          This is it. This is what they have.

Alison Bell:        17:37          I think if you think about adults too, which our average aged student is 36, so really that is really the population that we serve currently. And I've worked in supporting adults in higher ed for most of my career, and I've worked at a traditional university. And one of the things that we said all the time was when you have an adult who has competing priorities, so they want to complete their degree, but they've got a spouse who maybe becomes ill or something's happening, and they have children to take care of, or aging parents that they have to take care of. When you get overwhelmed and you've got school too, and you can't move things around, one thing has to go. You're not going to quit your job. You're hopefully not going to leave your spouse or your kids or your parents.

Alison Bell:        18:20          What can you give up? You can give up school. So we watched that battle all the time and at the traditional campus and with empathy and we're as flexible as we could be. And of course that happens to people at WGU Indiana too in some cases, but it happens less often because you can step away for a month in your term and take care, not officially withdraw, but just say to your mentor, I'm here, I'm good. But right now, my wife is taking priority. But it looks like next month I'm going to kick it right back in. And that flexibility is what keeps people going and it retains our students.

Douglas Karr:       18:53          That's incredible. You're talking to a guy that quit school because of that. I became a single dad, and so there was no option back then. So you're recruiting me.

Alison Bell:        19:03          Do you want to come back to school? Who's got a lead sheet?

Jacob Brown:        19:08          Well, I think something else that's important and relatively unique is in the state of Indiana. Indiana has a non-lottery program that takes care of children or disabled veterans. And that's me, and that's how I... WGU was one of two options that my employer had a sponsorship/partnership with, but it was the only one that was approved for the remission of fees program via the state of Indiana's department of veterans affairs.

Jacob Brown:        19:34          And that is probably one of the best and relatively most under-utilized programs that's out there. And so for me, that reinforced the direction that I was already going. In addition to tuition reimbursement, if their bank offers me a tuition discount because if Fifth Third's partnership with WGU and the ability to use the last part of a lifetime benefit through the state department of veterans affairs, because my father's a 90% disabled career Marine, I think all of those things, I don't know that you can find that anywhere else.

Douglas Karr:       20:13          Right, Yeah. If you would've gotten your master's degree traditionally, you'd be, what? $100,000 in-

Jacob Brown:        20:21          It would've certainly cost more, and it would've certainly... I can't envision a program, as I mentioned before, I can't envision a program that I would have been in other than this one where I actually would have been able to finish. The ability to step away is important.

Jacob Brown:        20:34          The other thing that I would... For me personally that was very impactful was, I was asked to give commitments when I could give the commitments and every single commitment that I set, while it might not have been a typical arrangement, I hit every single one of them. And I was given the autonomy and the latitude to sort of dictate how I was going to get through with these programs and everyone that I interacted with, both, and specifically WGU Indiana, but there is some interaction with the parent organization that's in Utah. Everyone was understanding, everyone was compassionate, and everyone gave me the opportunity to prove not only competency within the courses, but just, you know, I know what I can and can't do, and here's what it is. And they were very accepting and accommodating.

Douglas Karr:       21:24          That's incredible. I mean, both my kids graduated from IUPUI as well, my son, and then he went on for his PhD. So I got a PhD in the family too. And I love the fact that they went through traditional, but they had opportunities that were just afforded them that other people just don't have, so this is a great protocol. And I'm not sure how they, I mean, there's no way I could have done it. Especially I'm old. I would've been on a 1,400 bogged modem or something trying to connect-

Jacob Brown:        22:03          And I think for someone like me that's deeply connected to the community, I serve on three local nonprofit boards. The philanthropic position of WGU in the community and the way in which they want to show up in the community and impact really aligns with some of my core values. And in some of what I see is very important, character traits of people that I want to patronize or do business with or be involved with.

Jacob Brown:        22:26          And so it's just, you're going down and you're literally checking every single box mentally in your mind as you're going through this process. And all of those things I think are very important. And I think, you can find bits and pieces of this across probably every program available in the state. But finding all of that in one place, having direct one on one support and paying a much more reasonable cost for the same quality education is, I think very meaningful. Very impactful.

Douglas Karr:       22:55          That's incredible. You mentioned Fifth Third Bank of course, should people check with their employers and see whether there's a relationship there between the university?

Alison Bell:        23:07          Absolutely. We have partnerships around the state. So that'd be worthwhile checking. And even when there's not a partnership, if your employer has an education benefit, it works at WGU just like it would anywhere else. The nice thing about it is that a lot that education benefit is often about $5,200 right? And so if you do the math, there's not a lot of extra costs for an undergraduate degree to go to WGU. So their benefit dollars go further with us.

Douglas Karr:       23:36          That's fantastic. And for any leftover, is there still the traditional student loan?

Alison Bell:        23:43          So because WGU Indiana is a state private university, our students can earn federal and state financial aid, So that funding works. And then, and then we do have the generous scholarships. I mean, you never know between scholarships or through the state, you know, the commission has some nice adult student focused scholarships, the Indiana. Commission for Higher Education, so I'd check that out. But WGU also has a number of scholarships that is very easy to find and apply for on our website. So between that and maybe an education benefit through an employer, you almost make money going to school. You know, when you graduate.

Douglas Karr:       24:24          Well, if you're a [inaudible 00:24:26] you can definitely do it.

Jacob Brown:        24:27          And I would tell you that everyone that I interacted with, even though that financial aid was not there, forte or responsibility, they were certainly willing to help look for things if it was needed. It was always offered. And I was very fortunate that I wasn't in that situation because of the remission of fees program for the majority of this. But at the last tail end of it, the part that I was responsible for, everybody was willing to... here, Let me go see what's available to help you. And I just began. I think that's very, very impactful to know that you're going to have that dedicated support, whether it's a four year program or a graduate level program that's designed to be two years or less.

Douglas Karr:       25:12          You did the transition from traditional into this. You hear a lot of horror stories with universities, with getting your credits, right? That the university, and this isn't meant to bad mouth, you know, universities, but sometimes universities, they want to get those credit hours out so that you pay for them. It sounds like this is a pretty good transition.

Alison Bell:        25:34          I mean, it's a flat rate tuition, so WGU on our end, it doesn't serve us to not accept credits. So I think that... I guess you weren't in the position of transferring credits since you came as a graduate student. But what I think anyone would find is that we have very fair transfer credit policies, and here's the thing that makes it even better though. Is, let's say you're a student who transfers some of your credits to WGU Indiana. But maybe, there were a few that just didn't come in to account for a requirement that you thought it should.

Alison Bell:        26:12          If you took that class, in theory, you should have the competency. So in our system, you can demonstrate the competency on day one, basically. But you got to get up and running, but really within the first couple of weeks of your program. So if you didn't get the credit transferred in, you can earn it. It's not costing you anything because our tuition is flat rate. You can earn as much as you can in that semester and we don't charge you more for it.

Douglas Karr:       26:35          True story. I failed public speaking.

Alison Bell:        26:36          That's fine. You can come-

Douglas Karr:       26:36          I think I have a competency now.

Alison Bell:        26:42          ... I was going to say, when you enroll at WGU Indiana, you can earn your credit for that. You demonstrate that competency.

Douglas Karr:       26:50          That's fantastic. Well, let's talk about, where do people go? What should people do, to find out more information? What's the best way for them to get ahold of you?

Alison Bell:        26:57          The easiest thing would be Indiana.wgu.edu.

Douglas Karr:       27:03          Okay. Indiana.wgu.edu-

Alison Bell:        27:08          Is our website. And you can find everything there. There is a chat box that will come up if you want to talk with someone. Remembering that we're not for profit. So it's a low pressure conversation with any of our enrollment counselors. They just want to answer questions and help you determine if it's the right fit. We're about enrolling people who will be successful in our model. And so I think that makes it a really comfortable process.

Douglas Karr:       27:32          Yeah, that's incredible. So we'll put that link in the show notes-

Alison Bell:        27:36          Thank you.

Douglas Karr:       27:36          ... obviously for everybody. But please go visit it and just find out some more information. Maybe we should talk just a little bit before we cut out what you guys are mostly business?

Alison Bell:        27:47          Okay. So we have four colleges. IT, business, teacher's college, and health professions. And it's all bachelor's and master's degrees. And we have right around 66 different academic programs spread throughout those four colleges.

Jacob Brown:        28:02          And they can find all this information, obviously on the site.

Alison Bell:        28:05          It's all on the site.

Douglas Karr:       28:05          I would hope so.

Alison Bell:        28:06          You would hope we have a good website at minimum, right? All that information should be there. But also there are people behind that as Jacob has so nicely expressed that are ready to help.

Douglas Karr:       28:19          That's fantastic. I mean, the experience, we talked about that. The affordability, we talked about that. The accessibility obviously is incredible. So please, everybody listening, go check out indiana.wgu.edu for more information. Thank you so much for having me in these incredible offices today. This is a beautiful office by the way.

Alison Bell:        28:40          Thank you.

Douglas Karr:       28:40          For anybody, we are just off of Mass Avenue in downtown Indianapolis and it looks like it was a new build out and everything here, huh?

Alison Bell:        28:49          Yes, we were fortunate, they just designed it for us.

Douglas Karr:       28:53          That always makes it better.

Alison Bell:        28:55          Yeah, it's nice.

Douglas Karr:       28:56          Thank you very much.

Alison Bell:        28:57          Thank you so much for having us. We appreciate it.

Speaker 3:          29:02          If you're an Indianapolis based professional, and you'd like your story to be heard on Off the Circle, contact us at offthecircle.com. While you're there, be sure to subscribe to our podcast and leave us a glowing review.