Judith Marty, President, Doral College

Invest: spoke with Judith Marty, president of Doral College, about expanding access to higher education through affordable online programs, serving dual-enrollment and working-adult populations, and aligning new offerings with workforce needs. “Our mission is access, our mission is affordability,” Marty said.

How has Doral College’s mission evolved as the institution scales beyond its original model?
We are still focused on providing higher education in an inexpensive way and in an accessible way, because most of our courses are online. They are asynchronous, which means students do not have to tune in at a certain hour, but it is still controlled. It is not like they have eight weeks and can do whatever they want. They have to complete projects, participate in forums with other students, and do presentations. It is flexible, but there is still structure.

Doral College started working with dual-enrollment students, and as of the end of 2024, we were the second-largest institution in the state of Florida graduating high school students with an AA degree. I kind of have a feeling that in 2026 we may be the first, because we are graduating 635 high school students, 65% of them low-income, with two years of college. Our mission is access; our mission is affordability, and we are there.

In addition to that, we expanded first to education. We have a Bachelor of Science in Education, and we have been successful with that program. We also have a program called the Education Preparation Institute, which has been popular. We started two years ago, and we have more than 300 students. It is for people who have bachelor’s degrees in other areas, like biology or history, and who start teaching and then need the education foundation the state requires. We offer them the opportunity of interning at their own site of work, so they do not need to lose their salary. That is a fantastic program.

We also launched in 2024 our first master’s in educational leadership. We are graduating our first 30 students, and by now 77% have already passed the state exam, while the state rate is 69%. For the first cohort, we are really happy with that. The ones that have not completely passed have been getting remediation, and we are expecting them to pass soon. We need good leaders, and I think that our program produces good leaders. One of the unique things of our program is that all the professors are currently practicing principals in successful schools.

Since we spoke, we also have a Bachelor of Business Administration. We have it set up so students can start while doing dual enrollment and then continue with us for the last two years, but we also gear it for the working professional. We are looking for people who are working in any industry and have some college, but in order to grow, they need that bachelor’s degree. The last two years are structured in eight-week classes, so they can be full-time students while taking only two classes at a time.

The other new thing at the college is that we are being approved for federal financial aid. Some students, if they qualify, could get a Pell Grant or a student loan, and we are also looking at places that offer tuition reimbursement for people who take more advanced degrees.

Our newest program is criminal justice. We got approved to have a degree in criminal justice, and we are going to be approaching police departments. We will accept courses from the police academy, and it is geared toward professionals in law enforcement and corrections. A lot of people have their AA, but they do not have their bachelor’s, so we are offering a bachelor’s totally geared for that, with things like cybersecurity and other modern areas of criminal justice. It is inexpensive because our tuition is $130 per credit.

We are adding a Ph.D. and Ed.D. program in leadership and management, which will probably open in 2027. We are also working on a bachelor’s in psychology and contemplating certificate programs like paralegal and medical assistant. We are doing a lot.

What are the biggest barriers students still face, and how is Doral College addressing them?
The biggest barrier is money. Particularly in Miami, the cost of living is high, and the cost of higher education in general is high and getting higher. One of the things that we have done is to try to keep the cost low and affordable.

We know the population that we serve. In our dual-enrollment population, 67% of our students are receiving free and reduced lunch. If a student qualifies for a full Pell Grant, that is $7,000. If they go full-time, they are going to pay a lot less than that for tuition, maybe $3,500, and that gives them money for books and gives them money for being able to not go to work all the time and to concentrate on their studies.

We also have internal scholarships. We have the Zulueta Legacy endowment, and we help students who do not qualify for Pell or who need more than what other financial aid can give them. We are also now eligible for state help, including grants, the Florida Student Assistance Grant, Bright Futures, and others. We are almost finished getting approved for veterans’ benefits, which I am excited about because I think the criminal justice program could be interesting for people coming out of the Army, Navy, and other branches who are interested in law enforcement. That is what we are trying to do. We are trying to meet people where they are.

How are you continuing to innovate in dual enrollment?
We are constantly looking at our catalog and offering what the students need and what they are interested in. When we started doing electives for criminal justice, we opened Intro to Criminal Justice in the fall of last year. We opened one section, and all of a sudden we wound up doing five sections of the course.

This year, it was the same with medical terminology. We opened one session to see what would happen, and it became four sections the first time and continues to be popular. So we survey our dual-enrollment students to try to figure out what it is that they are interested in.

One thing that is interesting in Miami is that a lot of people are entrepreneurs. We are offering courses in entrepreneurship, and we are gearing a business degree not only for people who are going to work for other businesses, but for people who want to be entrepreneurs. We are trying to ask: What do they need? That is how we are looking at it. We are serving our students.

We also survey them in a way that gives us a high return rate. They need to complete the survey to enter Canvas, so we wind up getting a 97% return rate on the surveys. They tell us about their professors and what they need. We look at where we are, and we improve from there.

How do you ensure consistency and quality in the dual-enrollment experience at scale?
Our department chairs review the courses all the time, and we do teacher evaluations. In order to maintain accreditation, you have to make sure that your classes meet the student learning objectives. Our deans and department chairs are constantly reviewing courses.

We may have many sections of English 1101 and different professors teaching it, but the content and the student learning objectives have to be the same. We are also clear on midterms and finals, and students have to take those on camera. We also have systems to make sure that they are not copying. We spend a lot of money on software. If we are an online college, we better have the best of the best.

I am a firm believer in something I always said as a high school principal: You inspect what you expect. No matter how good people are, you need to make sure they are meeting the objectives. We follow the state numbering system, so when we offer English 1101, it cannot be any different than FIU, the University of Florida, or Miami Dade College, because we are using the same number and the same learning objectives.

How do you balance flexibility with maintaining a sense of academic community?
That is one of the hardest things to do. However, for the education program, we have an in-person symposium. We also require Zooms with the teachers. In the master’s program, students have a weekly Zoom with the professor for an hour. Out of 30 people in the class, 18 or 20 always show up, and some of them are mandatory.

We also try to create groups where people work together. We have a student government association, and they are planning an event here in Doral. We are also participating in honor societies. We now have a group of students interested in medicine, and they meet with an adviser. We are trying to do one now with criminal justice, and we are opening one for business.

The graduation is a big event, and the students do participate. We seat them by schools, so they sit with their peers. It is a celebration at the end, with dancing and music. I keep speeches short because when you are sitting there at graduation, you want to hear your name and go across the stage. With the master’s students, I also want to do a luncheon or dinner where they can talk to each other in person and meet the professors.

How closely do you collaborate with school systems to align your teacher preparation and leadership programs with real-world demands?
First of all, the students have to do a six-month internship at a school. We work with a consortium of 170 charter schools throughout the state, so we have the placements. Before they get to the internship, they also have field experiences. Many of our courses have 15 hours of field experiences where the student has to observe classes in a specific area.

We have a classroom management class that is critical because if you cannot control students, you cannot teach. I do not care how much history you know or how much knowledge you have. It’s irrelevant if you do not know how to keep those high schoolers paying attention or doing the work. Today’s education is not about having 30 kids quietly listening to a lecture. This generation does not learn that way. Whatever you do, it better be engaging, and the students have to be involved in their own learning.

And let us face it: AI is here, and it is here to stay. Teach your students how to use it correctly. Do not deny things that are going to happen anyway.

Every one of the professors that we have is a practicing educator. They are people with master’s or doctoral degrees, but they are also working in a school setting. So we make it real. Our master’s students also have to do a project at their own school, and in educational leadership they have a 200-hour internship. They can do it at their own school with their principal as mentor, but we also have a professor who visits them during the semester and meets with the principal and the graduate student to make sure the goals are being met.