Modern States Education Alliance, a nonprofit founded to make college more accessible and affordable, is partnering with Axim Collaborative to scale its innovative model that combines free online college-level courses with the College Board’s CLEP exams. The collaboration allows Modern States to pilot multiple new implementation approaches, including geographically focused networks and strategies focused on specific learner populations, to serve dramatically more students while keeping CLEP passage rates high and per-learner cost low. The models will particularly help learners underserved by traditional pathways earn free college credit and gain momentum toward a degree.

By offering free, high-quality online courses that prepare learners for CLEP exams - already accepted for credit at nearly 3,000 colleges and universities - Modern States provides a low-cost, flexible, and highly scalable pathway to earn college credit available to any learner anywhere. Their model has helped over 800,000 learners, including many from high-potential but often-overlooked groups, such as “comebackers”—individuals who began college but never earned a degree. With a structured but self-paced curriculum and CLEP exam vouchers that allow any learner who completes courses to test for college credit, Modern States provides a low-risk re-entry point into postsecondary education.