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 you to apply if you believe your background demonstrates the required skills and competencies: Must Haves for all roles at Meritus College: - Committed to Merit America’s mission to pave pathways to family-sustaining careers, break the poverty cycle, and create upward mobility for low-wage workers - Demonstrated history of embodying our values, which inform our work and drive our organization's culture - Shared sense of responsibility and ownership for our collective work in making a positive impact on the community we support, true to our value of Win & Lose Together - Committed to continuous learning and growth in advancing inclusive excellence and closing gaps across lines of difference - Passionate about fostering a workplace culture that embraces and values individual differences, aligned with our core value of inclusivity Must Haves for this role: Education - Bachelor's degree required; Master's degree in higher education, counseling, or a related field preferred. Experience - 5+ years in student services, academic advising, coaching, or learner support, including designing or running support services for online, adult, or non-traditional learners Systems Thinking & Operations - Ability to manage and improve complex systems involving multiple stakeholders, tools, and processes - Strong organizational and project management skills in fast-moving environments - Experience building or refining processes to improve user experience - Comfortable in a start-up environment, creating service standards, policies, and processes where none exist, and moving the work forward while building the system around it Team Leadership - Experience leading a team, formally or informally, ideally coaches, advisors, or other frontline support staff - A collaborative leadership style: you build shared practices with colleagues, give and ask for direct feedback, and work through difficult learner situations alongside your team Learner Support & Problem Solving - Experience supporting learners, students, or participants in education, workforce, or customer-facing environments - Familiarity with accessibility, accommodations, or wellness support frameworks - Working knowledge of student data privacy laws and disability accommodation requirements (ADA/Section 504) in higher education, or the ability to get up to speed quickly - Strong critical thinking skills to diagnose and resolve complex or ambiguous challenges - Ability to navigate sensitive situations with empathy and sound judgment Coordination & Communication - Strong cross-functional collaboration and communication skills - Ability to coordinate across multiple stakeholders, including external partners - Clear, concise communication with both learners and internal teams Data & Continuous Improvement - Comfort using data and feedback to identify trends and inform decisions - Ability to translate insights into actionable improvements - Detail-oriented with strong follow-through - Understands and can apply data privacy and data security framework to all sensitive learner data. Nice to Haves for this role: - Experience in higher education, student services, workforce development, or customer experience operations - Experience working with external vendors or managing partnerships - Experience working with or alongside AI-enabled tools or digital support systems Other Logistics - This position is full-time - Location: Remote - Salary: $105,000 We take care of our employees by providing the following perks and benefits (please note that some of the benefits do not apply to temporary employees): - Medical, Dental and Vision insurance (100% Paid Employee Only Coverage) - Flexible Spending Account and Health Savings Account - Dependent care Flexible Spending Account - Health Reimbursement Account fully funded by Merit - Education & personal development reimbursement - Catalog of courses for professional learning and development - Short and long-term disability - Flexible PTO (after a 90-day introductory period) - Paid Parental Leave and Adoption benefits (after 1 year of employment) - 11 federally recognized holidays - 2 week holiday office closure in December/January - 401(k) retirement plan with automatic Merit contribution - Wellness Benefits/Wellness Resources - Discount perks at work program - Phone/technology stipend - Home office setup stipend - Affinity groups and community building via virtual, in-person, and/or regional meetups *Eligibility for some benefits may vary based on employment status, full-time or part-time. Eligibility will be outlined during the hiring process. Remote Work & Sponsorship Candidates must reside within the 50 states or District of Columbia and have full authorization to work in the 50 U.S. states & the District of Columbia (international work abroad, including the U.S. territories (Puerto Rico, Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands, and other islands are excluded). In addition, Merit America doesn't offer employment visa sponsorship. Equal Opportunity Statement Building an inclusive, high-performing team that is diverse across lines of personal identity is integral to our success and we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer. This means we do not discriminate against any job applicant or employee because of their race, ethnicity, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. This applies to all terms and conditions of employment. We actively strive and evolve to develop and maintain workspaces that are fully inclusive. We encourage candidates from underrepresented groups to apply. Still excited about our work? You can learn more about our work in this video we made with our founding partner, Google. Fair Chance Ordinance Applicants who have arrest or conviction records and are in unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County will be considered in accordance with the state’s fair chance ordinance law. Employment under the ordinance includes part-time work, seasonal work, contract work, contingent work, work on commission, and work through the services of a temporary or employment agency. E-Verify Statement This employer participates in E-Verify and will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the U.S. If E-Verify cannot confirm that you are authorized to work, this employer is required to give you written instructions and an opportunity to contact Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or Social Security Administration (SSA) so you can begin to resolve the issue before the employer can take any action against you, including terminating your employment. Employers can only use E-Verify once you have accepted a job offer and completed the I-9 Form.