Want to earn a bachelor’s degree? This Michigan college has an app for that

Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids offers a chance to earn a degree completely on a smartphone
The courses have helped the small college boost its enrollment and innovate the online market
Skeptics say the ‘jury is out’ on the program’s academic rigor and more

Javid Zahir often starts his morning by listening to a podcast while in the shower. During his drive to work, he’ll listen to an audiobook. On his lunch hour, he’ll pop in earbuds and catch a video.

Zahir, 40, isn’t a cellphone addict. He’s a full-time professional, husband and father of four daughters who’s focused on consuming information to earn a bachelor’s degree — on his smartphone.

Zahir is earning the degree from Cornerstone University, a small private, Christian college in Grand Rapids which hails its smartphone degree as the nation’s first and the latest revolution in delivering education.

The program, known as SOAR, offers three business degrees that students earn through an app where they access 20-30 minute virtual lectures, podcasts and audiobooks, followed by interactive exams. It is aimed at attracting working adults to earn a degree through a self-paced program that costs tens of thousands of dollars less than traditional college degrees.

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For Zahir, the program turned him from a college skeptic into a diligent student. It also created a path to a dream he gave up long ago because he thought he didn’t have time for, couldn’t afford or achieve it.

“I made up my mind that I was never going to get a degree ever in my life, but now I am accomplishing something that I had resigned myself that I was never going to do,” said Zahir, director of operations for My Auto Group, an auto dealer in Muskegon.

“Once I have this degree … it opens up so many doors that were closed to me before.”

SOAR comes as colleges have faced enrollment pressures because of costs, changing attitudes about the value of a degree and the shrinking pool of traditional students due to declining birth rates, known as the demographic cliff.

Meanwhile, hundreds of colleges have closed across the country, including Siena Heights University, a 107-year-old Catholic college in Adrian that closed in May, one of several mostly faith-based Michigan colleges that have shuttered.

Cornerstone University created SOAR in 2025. Officials had been working to turn around the university’s enrollment struggles and examined the 43.1 million Americans with some college and no degree and more than 60 million with no college at all, including 4 million adults in Michigan, said President Gerson Moreno-Riaño.

These adults often are those who tried college and walked away, either because they didn’t see the relevance or were deterred by the cost or lack of flexibility, the president added.

“This is a crisis that a lot of people are not talking about,” said Moreno-Riaño. “We wanted to launch something that was radically affordable, radically flexible and accessible and would help students finish their degree and upskill workforce skills for employers.”

‘Future of education’

handout aerial shot of a college campus — Cornerstone University is a small, private Christian college in Grand Rapids with a student enrollment of just under 2,000 students, including 600 students enrolled in traditional online programs and 150 enrolled in the new SOAR program. (Courtesy of Cornerstone University)

Cornerstone University offers 20 programs to earn a degree online in business administration, psychology, ministry and more. Those programs have fixed timeframes of when they begin and what needs to be learned each week. A student who works full time and has a family can fall behind if they have a busy week or a sick child.

The college re-thought how to offer online education and came up with the SOAR program, an app that includes small nuggets of learning and assessments with content that is multisensory so that learners stay engaged. A key difference from traditional online programs, which are a mix of scheduled and self-paced learning, is that the SOAR program is completely self-paced. And, of course, it’s offered exclusively via a smartphone app.

“There is not anything out there in the country like this right now,” said Moreno-Riaño.

“It is the future of education.”

The cost of earning a bachelor degree through SOAR is also attractive to many students, Moreno-Riaño said. It varies, depending on how many credits a student may enter the program with, but it is generally $24,000. It costs $22,000 annually for students enrolled in Cornerstone’s traditional college program to earn a bachelor’s degree.

For those who earn a bachelor degree in four years, that means $88,000 – which is $64,000 more than the SOAR degree.

Students who are eligible for the Pell Grant can seek those federal funds to help defray costs, Moreno-Riaño said, or some employers offer tuition assistance programs.

There are 40 classes in the bachelor’s program. On average, it takes about 4-5 weeks to complete a class, officials said.

By the numbers

Since its launch last year, 250 students have enrolled, four graduated and more degree offerings are planned. Most of the students are between the ages of 35-55 and mostly enrolled in the business management bachelor’s degree program, though some are working to earn an associate degree or the master’s degree in organizational leadership.

Currently, most of the students are from Michigan, but Cornerstone University is planning a major marketing campaign this month to expand its reach.

Some are skeptical, like George Kuh, an Indiana University professor emeritus and authority on higher education, who called the program, “a marketing tool.”

“One of the ways they can make this so inexpensive is there is little to no time spent with students,” Kuh said.

He said it wouldn’t surprise him if only 15-20% of students who enroll graduate because that is consistent with completion with most online universities. Also raising questions for Kuh is the rigor of the SOAR program, how the university accepts previously earned credits from students and how the solitude of learning from a smartphone can teach students how to interact with others in the workplace.

“These programs are well intentioned,” Kuh said. “I don’t think this particular degree is supposed to be the cornerstone of Cornerstone … It is intended to boost enrollment numbers.”

That’s why Kuh said: “The jury is out.”

Indeed, low completion rates for online degree programs have some experts calling for reforms. Many online universities, though, are operated by schools that, unlike Cornerstone, are for-profit and have no physical presence.

A market ‘no one really owns’

Heidi Cece, Cornerstone executive vice president and chief of staff, agrees that the jury is still out since the SOAR program has only been operational for 13 months. But 70% of students have remained in the program since the beginning, and retention from semester to semester is over 80%.

“So far, the intrayear data is showing much stronger (retention) than a typical online adult learner market,” Cece said.

Cornerstone offers success coaching to students in SOAR. The college also has data offering insight into the behavior of the students in the app that they don’t have for other adult learners.

“It is giving us insights to believe that we really do believe they stay engaged with the material,” Cece said. “The relevancy is higher … So we’re optimistic. The ‘jury is out’ is fair. But everything we are seeing with the early data is showing great persistence and great engagement.”

There are many reasons why the college decided to launch SOAR, said Moreno-Riaño, a first generation student who immigrated to the US 45 years ago from Colombia. In his 30 years in higher education, he’s been involved in the launch of conventional online degree programs and witnessed many nontraditional students finally earn a credential.

“When I came to Michigan five years ago, I had a number of individuals tell me that the greatest opportunities I had at Cornerstone is to get a hold of and win the online, nontraditional student market,” Moreno-Riaño said. “It is a market that no one really owns in Michigan, and we have an opportunity.”

Cornerstone University President Gerson Moreno-Riaño calls the college’s bachelor degree program that can be earned completely on a cellphone ‘the future of education.’ (Courtesy of Cornerstone University

Cornerstone University enrolled 1,916 students in fall 2025, a 14% increase from last year, the president said. That figure includes 1,100 traditional students, which has held steady in recent years, and 750 students enrolled in online programs, including 150 students in the SOAR program – meaning that the app has contributed to enrollment gains, Cece said.

The national demographic cliff of traditional college students, along with the state’s free community college program, has made it tough for four-year colleges to recruit them.

When Moreno-Riaño began his tenure five years ago, he discovered a 13-year enrollment decline when the college had lost 3-5% of its students annually, plummeting from 2,900 students to 1,850 students in fall 2021. But the college has since turned it around.

The SOAR program is one way that the college is addressing its enrollment decline. Other ways are revamping the colleges’ more than two dozen online programs to ensure they are as strong as possible with high-quality content, faculty and user experience. The college is also strengthening its experience for traditional students on campus.

“We wanted to grow all three of those vectors so we have worked very diligently to strengthen the quality, the quality of the faculty and experience of the student,” Moreno-Riaño said.

The last innovation in higher learning was the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) – free courses offered online beginning in the early 2000s, Moreno-Riaño said. The SOAR program is now the latest innovation, he added.

“It is a completely revolutionary approach to deliver education,” Moreno-Riaño said.

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