Manager, Learner Services & Experiences

The Organization: Meritus College
Meritus College is a new kind of not-for-profit online college, built from the ground up to meet the needs of working adults and career-changers who’ve been overlooked by traditional higher education.
The problem is clear: only 33% of Pell grant recipients complete their degrees at two-year colleges within six years. College has become too rigid, too expensive, and too disconnected from both student realities and career outcomes. Meritus College is different. Our online, asynchronous programs and "workplace as laboratory" approach allow students to learn and apply new skills directly to their jobs, while receiving personalized support from dedicated coaches every step of the way. We focus on real-world skills and stackable credentials in high-demand fields, ensuring graduates are prepared for today's jobs and tomorrow's opportunities. Founded in 2025 with an inaugural Associate of Applied Science in Technology and Innovation degree, Meritus College is building a mainstream pathway to economic mobility—one designed not for the privileged few, but for the talented many who’ve too often been left behind.
Role Overview
At Meritus College, learner support is not a collection of disconnected services - it is a coordinated system designed to remove barriers, accelerate progress, and ensure every learner has access to the resources they need to succeed.
The Manager, Learner Services & Experiences, is responsible for ensuring that this system functions seamlessly. This role oversees the full ecosystem of learner support services, including academic advising, tutoring, wellness, accessibility, and library services. These services are delivered through a combination of AI-powered tools and external partners. This role ensures that services are available, accessible, high-quality, and effectively integrated into the learner experience. As Meritus College continues to build, you will own the learner services system end to end, setting the standards for how services are delivered and holding providers, tools, and processes to them.
The Manager, Learner Services & Experiences, serves as the central coordination point across services and as the primary escalation point for complex learner needs. They work closely with Learner Success Partners (coaches), instructors, instructor and program design team, and external providers to ensure learners are connected to the right support at the right time. This role reports to the Director of Instruction and Learner Experience.
This is a high-ownership, systems-oriented role designed for scale. It is a player-coach role that combines hands-on ownership of learner services with program management for the work: translating priorities into plans, coordinating providers and dependencies, tracking work, and building the service standards, policies, and workflows that do not yet exist. The Learner Success Partners (LSPs) report to this role. Because Meritus College is a small, collaborative team, you will lead as a working member of it: handling complex learner situations alongside LSPs, building shared coaching practices with them, and supporting their day-to-day work and growth.
You will be the connective point between how learner services are designed and how learners experience them. Working with the Manager, Instruction and Program Design, you will use what LSPs and service providers see in live delivery to improve services, policies, and courses rather than waiting for a formal review cycle.
Responsibilities
The responsibilities will include, but are not limited to, the following:
Program and Project Management (15%):
Own the learner services portion of the instruction and learner support workplan, in coordination with the Manager, Instruction and Program Design, maintaining projects, milestones, owners, timelines, and statuses
Coordinate the learner services operating rhythm: facilitate team meetings and internal reviews, set agendas, document decisions and next steps, and ensure follow-through
Represent learner services in Functional Lead syncs within Meritus College, raising progress, asks, dependencies, decisions needed, and wins
Define and report learner services metrics (e.g., service use, time to resolution, learner satisfaction, persistence) to College leadership
Make staffing, capacity, and budget recommendations as enrollment grows, including LSP caseload ratios and vendor capacity
Learner Services Operations (20%):
Ensure all learner support services are operational, accessible, and aligned with learner needs
Create and maintain clear pathways for learners to access services such as academic advising, tutoring, wellness, and accessibility support
Monitor service usage and identify trends in learner needs and barriers to access
Continuously improve processes to create a seamless and intuitive learner experience
Translate College model into a coordinated set of services spanning advising, academic support, wellness, career, coaching, and financial and child care resources
Own the accommodations process end to end, from intake and documentation through approval, faculty notification, and record-keeping, in partnership with the Operations and Compliance team
Create and maintain service standards, response-time expectations, and learner-facing guides so services are consistent, accessible, and usable at scale
Service Coordination & Escalation (15%):
Serve as the primary escalation point for complex learner issues that require coordination across multiple services
Partner with Learner Success Partners (coaches) to ensure learners are connected to the appropriate resources
Ensure timely resolution of learner issues, maintain accurate documentation, and communicate with coaches and instructors
Establish protocols for learner crises, wellness concerns, and other urgent situations, including when and how to involve College leadership and outside resources
Manage the learner complaint and grievance process in partnership with the Compliance team, so complaints are documented, resolved, and tracked as accreditors and state regulators require
LSP Team Leadership & Support (15%):
Serve as the day-to-day lead for the Learner Success Partners (LSPs): hold regular check-ins, help prioritize their work, and be their first call when a learner situation gets complicated
Work with LSPs to build shared coaching practices (outreach, check-ins, referrals, and documentation), using case consultations and peer feedback to keep support consistent across learners
Coordinate LSP caseloads with the team, balancing assignments as enrollment grows and learner needs shift
Help onboard and train new LSPs on the learner services ecosystem, referral and escalation protocols, and FERPA and data privacy requirements
Use shared team measures (e.g., learner contact rates, referral follow-through, persistence) to spot where learners need more support and where the team needs more capacity
Vendor & Tool Management (10%):
Act as the primary liaison for external service providers including library and tutoring services, and AI-supported tools
Monitor service performance and learner experience across vendors and tools
Provide feedback and insights to improve service quality and effectiveness
Partner with leadership to identify opportunities to enhance or expand services over time
Manage vendor relationships end to end, including scoping, selection, contract terms and service-level expectations, performance reviews, and renewal recommendations
Evaluate AI-enabled support tools before and after adoption, with safeguards for learner privacy and accuracy and clear handoffs to a person when a learner needs one
Process Design & Continuous Improvement (15%):
Build and refine workflows for service access, triage, and escalation
Identify gaps in the learner services ecosystem and build practical solutions
Use learner feedback and data to inform improvements to services and processes
Contribute to the long-term design of a scalable, high-impact learner support model
Maintain learner services documentation (policies, procedures, service records, and outcome data) to a standard that holds up under accreditation review, in partnership with the Operations and Compliance team
Cross-Functional Collaboration (10%):
Partner with the instruction team so learners get coordinated, consistent support.
Provide guidance and clarity on how and when to utilize learner services
Share insights and trends to inform learner experience improvements
Partner with the Manager, Instruction and Program Design to turn what LSPs and service providers see in live delivery into course revisions, and to build learner services into courses where learners need them
Partner with recruitment and enrollment on the handoff from admission to onboarding so new learners are connected to services and an LSP from day one
Skills and Competencies
We recognize that some individuals from underrepresented backgrounds may hesitate to apply if they don’t meet 100% of the listed qualifications. Please don’t let that discourage you from applying! We value the unique skills, experiences, and perspectives that each applicant brings, and we encourage