The global education technology company adds speech-language pathology, counseling, clinical social work, and pharmacy programs as the country's clinical workforce shortage deepens
Risepoint, a global education technology company that supports more than 100 universities, has acquired the North American business operations of Keypath Education. The move adds a portfolio of online healthcare programs at a moment when the country continues to face shortages across several clinical professions. It also brings online programs serving more than 10,000 students across more than 65 programs at over 20 Keypath university partners into support from Risepoint, most of them concentrated in the hard-to-staff corners of healthcare that hospitals and clinics are struggling to fill.
With Keypath's North American operations, Risepoint expands its capabilities in speech-language pathology, counseling, clinical social work, and pharmacy, each an occupation where demand is outpacing the supply of qualified graduates. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects employment of speech-language pathologists to grow 15% by 2034, much faster than the 3% average for all occupations. Mental health counselor jobs are projected to grow 17% over the same period and healthcare social workers 8%, both outpacing that average as the population ages and demand for behavioral healthcare rises.
Meeting demand
Standing up a clinical program is difficult work. It requires specialized faculty, accreditation expertise, and access to the hospitals, clinics, private healthcare offices, and health systems where students complete supervised hours. Many regional universities see the demand for such programs in their communities but lack the infrastructure to launch these programs at scale due to the complexities involved in providing clinical placements to online students where they live. Risepoint is moving to close that gap with this acquisition, as Keypath has built a an established clinical placement capability for the online students that their partner educate.
“Universities are looking for ways to expand healthcare programs, serve more students, and help address workforce shortages in their communities,” said Fernando Bleichmar, CEO of Risepoint, in a statement. “By bringing together the Risepoint scale in online education and the clinical placement expertise of Keypath, we can help our partners build and grow high-quality healthcare programs that meet both student demand and workforce needs.”
For universities, the addition deepens the range of support available without changing who owns the academic work. Curriculum, admissions, instruction, and financial aid remain owned exclusively by each university and its faculty. What expands is the operational and technology support around those programs: instructional design assistance, market insights, integrated marketing and initial student outreach, and enrollment support, now extended into healthcare disciplines that require dedicated clinical infrastructure.
A network of clinical placement sites
The acquisition also broadens the network of clinical sites where students can complete the supervised hours their credentials require. Much of that capacity sits in the small outpatient offices, community clinics, and local practices near where students already live, not only in large hospitals or health systems. For most programs the hard part is rarely the coursework; it is securing enough placements for students to log their clinical hours on time and close to home. Keypath spent more than a decade building relationships with those sites, and bringing that capability into Risepoint means more of its university partners can offer clinical programs without having to assemble a placement network from scratch.
Programs will continue to be built around each university's own faculty, mission, and brand, rooted in the communities they serve. Many graduates of regional university programs continue to live and work in the communities they serve. They continue to live and work in the local economies that trained them. Adding speech therapists, counselors, social workers, and pharmacists to that pipeline puts more clinicians into exactly the places that need them.
The integration is designed to be smooth for current students, whose support continues without interruption as the two operations come together. For the universities that partner with Risepoint, and for the working adults enrolled in their programs, the practical result is a larger catalog of high-demand healthcare credentials backed by the infrastructure required to deliver them well.