Education
Director of Continuing Education
Last updated
A Director of Continuing Education leads the unit responsible for non-credit, professional development, workforce training, and lifelong learning programs at a college, university, or K-12 district. They develop and launch new programs in response to employer and community demand, manage instructors and program staff, and operate the division as a revenue-generating enterprise with its own enrollment and financial targets.
Role at a glance
- Typical education
- Master's degree in education, business administration, or public administration
- Typical experience
- 5-8 years
- Key certifications
- LERN, IACET
- Top employer types
- Community colleges, workforce development nonprofits, healthcare systems, large manufacturing firms, community foundations
- Growth outlook
- Growing demand driven by the acceleration of skills-based hiring and national priorities in worker reskilling.
- AI impact (through 2030)
- Strong tailwind — AI-driven automation is increasing the national priority for worker reskilling, creating higher demand for the short-cycle, job-relevant training programs this role manages.
Duties and responsibilities
- Develop and launch new continuing education, professional development, and workforce training programs in response to employer demand and market analysis
- Manage the continuing education unit's budget, including revenue projections, instructor costs, marketing spend, and facility expenses
- Hire, supervise, and evaluate continuing education program managers, instructors, and administrative support staff
- Build and maintain relationships with local employers, workforce development boards, and industry associations to identify training needs and secure training contracts
- Oversee marketing and enrollment efforts for continuing education programs, including digital marketing, direct employer outreach, and enrollment management
- Ensure programs meet relevant licensing, CEU accreditation, and state approval requirements for professional continuing education credit
- Negotiate and administer customized employer training contracts, including needs assessment, curriculum development, scheduling, and outcome reporting
- Monitor program enrollment, completion rates, student satisfaction, and employer feedback to inform program continuation and revision decisions
- Coordinate with academic departments to develop pathways from continuing education into credit-bearing programs
- Pursue external funding including workforce development grants, apprenticeship program funds, and state workforce investment act resources
Overview
A Director of Continuing Education runs the part of an educational institution that operates most like a business. The continuing education division is often self-sustaining — meaning it must generate enough tuition and contract revenue to cover its own costs without drawing on the institution's credit-side subsidy. That financial reality shapes how directors think about their work: programs that don't enroll sufficiently get discontinued, programs that meet strong market demand get expanded, and business development is as important as curriculum design.
The program portfolio in a typical continuing education division is broad. Professional certifications in healthcare, IT, finance, and skilled trades. Personal enrichment classes in art, cooking, language, and wellness. Workforce training contracts with regional employers who need specialized skill development for their workers. English as a Second Language and Adult Basic Education programs for community members working toward workforce entry. Continuing medical education or continuing legal education credits for licensed professionals. The director is managing this entire range simultaneously.
Employer partnerships are the most strategically valuable part of the portfolio. A hospital that contracts for 200 clinical supervisor training spots per year, or a manufacturer that needs 50 employees certified in Six Sigma, provides both stable revenue and a direct signal of what skills the labor market values. Building and renewing those relationships is central to the director's job.
Adult learners are the primary students, and they require a different experience than traditional-age undergraduates. They are busy, often skeptical of institutions, paying out of pocket or on employer tuition benefit programs, and making decisions about whether training is worth their time based on specific career or skill goals. Programs that waste their time lose them quickly.
Qualifications
Education:
- Master's degree in education, business administration, public administration, or related field
- Certifications in continuing education administration (LERN — Learning Resources Network — and IACET — International Accreditors for Continuing Education and Training — are the most relevant)
Experience:
- 5–8 years in continuing education, workforce development, adult education, or program management
- Direct revenue and budget management responsibility — interviews will probe how you've hit enrollment targets and managed program finances
- Business development experience: identifying training needs, proposing solutions to employers, and closing contracts
- Instructor management: hiring, orienting, and evaluating adjunct and contract instructors who are the primary delivery mechanism
Technical skills:
- CRM and registration systems: Destiny One, CE Vision, or custom registration platforms used in continuing education
- Learning management systems: Canvas, Moodle, or Blackboard for online CE delivery
- Digital marketing basics: email marketing, social media, and paid digital advertising for program enrollment
- Grant writing for workforce development funding programs
Industry knowledge:
- WIOA and state workforce development funding structure
- Professional licensing requirements and CEU standards by industry sector
- Apprenticeship program structure and Department of Labor registration requirements
- IACET and ACCET accreditation standards for continuing education providers
Personal attributes:
- Entrepreneurial orientation — continuing education rewards directors who identify and move on opportunities quickly
- Genuine interest in adult learners and workforce development as a social good, not just a revenue opportunity
- Tolerance for ambiguity: enrollment projections are less reliable than credit program projections
Career outlook
Continuing education and workforce development are among the growth areas in education, even as credit enrollments face demographic headwinds. Several forces are driving this.
Skills-based hiring is accelerating. A growing number of employers — including large federal contractors, technology companies, and healthcare systems — are removing degree requirements from positions where they were historically required and replacing them with skills credentials. That shift creates demand for the kinds of short-cycle, demonstrably job-relevant training programs that continuing education divisions are positioned to deliver.
Worker reskilling has become a national priority as automation and AI shift the skill requirements of many jobs. Community colleges and workforce development organizations with the capacity to deploy training quickly to mid-career workers are receiving significant state and federal investment. Directors who can design and deliver industry-recognized credentials — aligned with actual job requirements — are in demand.
The institutional appetite for CE revenue has also grown as traditional tuition revenue faces enrollment pressure. Presidents and provosts who once treated continuing education as a peripheral function are now more interested in whether the CE division can grow and contribute to institutional sustainability. That attention creates more resources for directors who can demonstrate results, and more risk for those who can't.
The role's market is primarily regional and institutional — continuing education directors don't have the geographic mobility of some higher education administrators because their local employer relationships and community networks are significant assets. Career advancement typically leads to Vice President for Continuing Education, Dean of Workforce Development, or executive director roles at workforce development nonprofits and community foundations.
Sample cover letter
Dear Search Committee,
I am applying for the Director of Continuing Education position at [Institution]. I have spent seven years managing workforce training and professional development programs, currently as Senior Program Manager for Workforce Training at [Organization], where I oversee a portfolio of 18 programs serving approximately 1,200 learners annually.
The program I'm most proud of developing is a healthcare supervisor certification track we launched in partnership with three regional hospital systems. The original need surfaced in a conversation with an HR director at one of those systems who was frustrated that newly promoted frontline supervisors were failing in their first 90 days for reasons that had nothing to do with clinical competence — they didn't know how to have a performance conversation, manage a schedule, or document a disciplinary issue. We designed a 40-hour certificate that addressed exactly those gaps, validated the content with supervisors and HR managers at all three systems, and piloted it with 24 participants. Pass-through rates to 90-day supervisor performance reviews improved 22% in the first year. The three hospital systems have now renewed the contract for a third year.
I have managed a program budget of $1.4M, including instructor contracts, marketing, facility costs, and an online platform migration. I have also written and received two state workforce development grants totaling $310,000 that funded equipment and curriculum development for manufacturing certification programs.
I am drawn to [Institution] because of the strength of your employer relationships in [region] and the opportunity to build a more integrated pathway from CE credentials into credit-bearing programs — a connection that currently exists informally at many institutions but that, when designed intentionally, substantially improves outcomes for adult learners.
I would welcome the opportunity to discuss this role further.
[Your Name]
Frequently asked questions
- Is continuing education at a college the same as the credit-bearing academic programs?
- No. Continuing education (also called professional development, community education, or workforce development, depending on the institution) typically refers to non-credit programs that don't count toward a degree. They are often self-supporting financially — generating revenue through tuition without receiving the institutional subsidies that credit programs receive. At most institutions, the continuing education division operates with more entrepreneurial autonomy than the credit side, developing and closing programs based on market demand.
- What does a customized employer training contract involve?
- An employer — a hospital, manufacturer, government agency, or tech company — contracts with the continuing education division to deliver training for their employees. The director or their staff conducts a needs assessment, designs or adapts curriculum, schedules delivery at the employer's site or on campus, delivers instruction, and reports on completion and outcomes. These contracts can range from a few thousand to several hundred thousand dollars and require the kind of business development and project management orientation that distinguishes CE directors from traditional academic administrators.
- What credentials are typically required for this role?
- A master's degree in education, business, public administration, or a related field is standard. 5–8 years of program development, workforce training, business development, or adult education experience is expected. Continuing education directors are often evaluated more on their entrepreneurial track record — programs launched, contracts secured, revenue generated — than on traditional academic credentials. CEU accreditation knowledge and IACET familiarity are pluses.
- How does the CE director role interact with state and federal workforce funding?
- Workforce Investment and Opportunity Act (WIOA) funds flow through state workforce development boards to approved training providers. Directors at institutions approved as eligible training providers can access this funding to subsidize enrollment in their programs. Additionally, apprenticeship program registration through the Department of Labor, sector partnership grants, and state workforce grants represent significant funding opportunities that experienced CE directors know how to pursue.
- How is online and AI-delivered instruction changing continuing education?
- Online delivery has expanded the geographic reach of CE programs dramatically — a certificate program that once drew students only from the immediate region can now enroll students statewide or nationally. AI tutoring tools and adaptive learning platforms are beginning to appear in CE program delivery, particularly in technical certification tracks. The challenge is quality assurance at scale: continuing education programs have historically been less rigorously assessed than credit programs, and the sector is under increasing pressure to document outcomes.
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