In 2009, BYU–Idaho launched a program called Pathway. This one-year, reduced-cost online program was offered to students wherever they lived, without stepping on a university campus. Eight years later, in 2017, Pathway changed when the Church announced the creation of BYU–Pathway Worldwide.
On this episode of the Church News podcast, we learn the stories of faith that have guided the growth and success of BYU–Pathway with its president, Brian K. Ashton, and Matt Eyring, the school’s vice president of advancement.
They join us to share stories they have observed of students’ personal successes, as well as a vision for the program’s future as part of the gathering of Israel and fulfillment of scriptural prophecy about the establishment of Zion.
Listen to the Church News podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you get podcasts.
Transcript:
Brian K. Ashton: The Church Educational System in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is doubling down on our moral foundations and our spiritual moorings. And so everything that we do leads you back to the Savior. In fact, the mission of the Church Educational System and of BYU–Pathway is to develop disciples of Jesus Christ who are leaders in their homes, the Church and their communities. And then on top of that, we’re led by prophets and apostles. And so coming to the Church Educational System, you’re going to learn truth. You’re going to have the Holy Ghost to help you learn truth. And then you’re going to have the Holy Ghost to help make you a better employee, a better father, a better mother, a better Church leader. And what we say often is that intelligence is equally distributed, but opportunity is not. BYU–Pathway allows opportunity to be equally distributed, and that’s one of the gifts of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Church of Jesus Christ, that it’s giving to the world.
1:11
Jon Ryan Jensen: This is Jon Ryan Jensen, editor of the Church News. Welcome to the Church News podcast. Today, we are taking you on a journey of connection as we discuss news and events of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
In 2009, BYU–Idaho launched a program called Pathway. This one-year, reduced-cost, online program was offered to students wherever they lived, with no need to ever step foot on a university campus. Eight years later, in 2017, Pathway changed when the Church announced the creation of BYU–Pathway Worldwide.
On this episode of the Church News podcast, we learn the stories of faith that have guided the growth and success of BYU–Pathway with its president, President Brian K. Ashton, and Matt Eyring, the school’s vice president of advancement. President Ashton previously served as second counselor in the Church’s Sunday School general presidency and has an MBA from Harvard. Brother Eyring also studied at Harvard and was once named one of Fast Company’s “Most Creative People in Business.”
They join us to share stories they have observed of students’ personal successes, as well as a vision for the future of the program as part of the gathering of Israel and the fulfillment of scriptural prophecy about the establishment of Zion.
President Ashton, Brother Eyring, thank you both for being here. We’re excited to talk to you today.
Brian K. Ashton: Thank you. We’re excited to be here.
Matt Eyring: Thanks.
2:30
Jon Ryan Jensen: I think one of the things that we need to start with is an explanation of what exactly is BYU–Pathway, because this is something that’s been around for a while, but maybe not everyone is completely well versed in what the program is.
2:46
Brian K. Ashton: Yeah. So great. Thank you, Ryan. The Church Educational System has four campuses, plus Seminaries and Institutes, and for a long time, you had to go to a campus to get a spiritually based education from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That wasn’t possible for everyone. And so, BYU–Pathway’s,role within the Church Educational System is to be the access provider. So currently, we provide a foundational program called PathwayConnect. That’s what people traditionally said is Pathway. And then we provide access and support to students who take degrees online from other Church education schools, in particular BYU–Idaho and Ensign College. So you can get a degree online at a very low cost, and it’s spiritually based and has a great moral foundation.
3:43
Jon Ryan Jensen: I think that some may hear that and think, “But is it the same quality as other schools that I may want to attend?” I know a lot has gone in, especially on that BYU–Idaho side, to make sure the quality is where it needs to be. Can you help clarify that a little?
Brian K. Ashton: Yeah. So, for example, at Ensign College, it is the exact same courses that are taught on campus. With BYU–Idaho, there’s slight modifications, but it’s the same BYU–Idaho degree, and our students are getting jobs at the same types of employers. So for example, JPMorganChase, you know, large financial institutions, Microsoft, Google, you know, it’s the same degrees, it’s the same quality, it’s just as good.
Matt Eyring: I think also the degrees are accredited, which is really important. So internationally, these are U.S.-accredited degrees, accredited like any other school.
4:44
Jon Ryan Jensen: What led the two of you to be a part of this?
Brian K. Ashton: Matt, you want to?
Matt Eyring: Well, I was involved with BYU–Pathway shortly after Kim Clark went to be president of BYU–Idaho. I had a leadership role on the East Coast. And we were probably the fourth site in the U.S. I think they had Idaho they started with, they went to Arizona, and then from Arizona to New York. And after that, I helped, with many others, establish about a dozen BYU–Pathway sites on the East Coast. And so I was involved in calling missionaries. I was involved in showing up at the gatherings. I was involved in everything to do with a startup phase. I saw it from its very beginning. And fast forward, Elder Clark Gilbert and Brian Ashton approached me to see if I’d be interested in joining again.
And I had worked early in my career in economic development overseas. I worked with a Harvard professor and others using the tools of modern economic development, and I knew there was something special here, especially as it went international and begin to spread across the earth, that this was potentially going to be the answer educationally, economically and also really spiritually for the students that were involved. I had sensed that in the earliest days of BYU–Pathway, and I felt lucky to join, and I feel lucky to be here.
6:18
Brian K. Ashton: Elder Clark Gilbert and I had been friends since BYU. In fact, we shared an office together on the campus at BYU. And then we were at Harvard Business School together. Matt was there with us, and I got called into the general Sunday School presidency. We were writing “Come, Follow Me,” and I had an assignment in Rexburg. Elder Gilbert was then president of BYU–Idaho, and after our training that evening, I called him and said, “Hey, can we stop by and see you?” My wife was with me, and we went to see him and Christine. And he called me a day later and said, “Hey, I’ve had a feeling that you should be involved with something new that we’re doing called Pathway,” and it took me a little while to get my affairs in order, but I quickly realized this was something that would really make a difference in a lot of lives, and something that we would want to be a part of. And so I joined in 2018.
7:16
Jon Ryan Jensen: So then you both start working here. You’re seeing students participate. You’re seeing companies of global reputation start to place students from these schools. Part of that, even though it’s a virtual experience, largely, part of this is internship opportunities. How does an internship opportunity work when you are doing classes not at a physical campus?
7:41
Matt Eyring: At any school, internships are the bridge from academics to employment. And at BYU–Pathway, this is even more important. We’re in 180 countries. Many of these countries have economies that are lower output, not functioning as well, the labor markets are more difficult. There’s high unemployment, and so these internships allow us, especially when they’re remote jobs — so they’re jobs people are getting using a computer, using a phone, with companies in the developed world, where they are able to find work that’s aligned with the things that they are studying.
So I’ll give you an example of that, which is in accounting. In our accounting vertical, the accounting track, folks can actually come into an internship. They can take a basic accounting primer. They can then get a bookkeeping certification. So they’ll go through several weeks of QuickBooks training, where they’ll be able to be certified in QuickBooks, and after that get a job. And we have that in many different verticals. You can do that in coding, you can do that in digital marketing, you can do that in many areas. So internships not only help them apply, like they do in the United States, what they’re learning in their academic coursework, but they help them get remote jobs that are relevant to them and that are really career paths in other markets outside of where they live.
9:04
Jon Ryan Jensen: One of the, I mean, you compared it in the beginning of that to a bridge, but with those certifications, it’s almost like you’re saying, “Here, take a few steps on the bridge so we can show you you really can make it to the other side of this.”
9:16
Matt Eyring: Yeah, I think it gives confidence to the student, but it’s also a mark to the employers. So the world has changed quite a bit, where No. 1, two-thirds of the global economy is now services, and No. 2, information technology has allowed folks to work remotely. COVID, with all of its terrible ramifications, actually made the ability to work remotely more normalized globally, and so there are many, many more opportunities now for these students abroad to get jobs. But certification tells the employer, “Hey, I may not know this student. They may be in a foreign market. They may be in a country that typically we haven’t hired from. But I know if they have this certification, that they’re going to be a great employee, and I know if they’re from BYU–Pathway, they’re going to be a hardworking, honest, well-trained employee.”
10:06
Brian K. Ashton: And this is one of the things that really sets BYU–Pathway apart. In a traditional university, it’s in your last year when you create all the value. You start with general education, it doesn’t really lead to a job. You then work your way through your major. And by the time you can really make more money, you’re graduated. In BYU–Pathway, we use something called a certificate-first model, where you get a certificate right up front in your major that gives you a job skill, and you get three of these along the way to create a bachelor’s degree. Each time you complete a certificate, you’re able to get a better job. And so it’s creating economic value for the students all along the way.
10:48
Jon Ryan Jensen: So there’s value for the students, there’s value for the companies they work for, there’s value for the countries where they live. Why is it the Church that is doing this, and is there a benefit that comes to the Church that strengthens the Church because of BYU–Pathway?
11:03
Brian K. Ashton: Yeah, great question. So, as you know, many universities have abandoned their moral foundation. You know, that creates real problems. I recently listened to Ruth Okediji, who’s a famous professor at Harvard Law School, and Ruth said, you know, that most of the elite universities have abandoned their origins in religion. And she said it has become so bad that everything is true, therefore nothing is true. And she said what has resulted is incredibly high rates of depression and people who don’t know where they want to go with their lives.
On the other hand, the Church Educational System in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is doubling down on our moral foundations and our spiritual moorings. And so everything that we do leads you back to the Savior. In fact, the mission of the Church Educational System and of BYU–Pathway is to develop disciples of Jesus Christ who are leaders in their homes, the Church and their communities.
And then on top of that, we’re led by prophets and apostles. And so coming to the Church Educational System, you’re going to learn truth. You’re going to have the Holy Ghost to help you learn truth. And then you’re going to have the Holy Ghost to help make you a better employee, a better father, a better mother, a better Church leader. You know, as we go to Africa, for example, or most places internationally, our students are serving in bishoprics and stake presidencies, in Relief Society presidencies, Young Women’s presidencies. And this is the future internationally of leadership for the Church.
12:49
Jon Ryan Jensen: If I recall correctly, you have recently been in the Pacific. I was there a few months ago in some of the same locations that you visited and saw some of the schools the Church already has in operation, physical schools, and saw in those communities that the youth there, the children there, they want to be in the schools the Church runs because of all the things that you just listed.
Has there been a challenge in bringing that same feeling from those schools that already exist in the Pacific into this virtual world so that they can have that same kind of feeling and have all of those same characteristics that you just mentioned?
13:25
Brian K. Ashton: You know, even in the islands of the sea — I was just in Kiribati, and I believe you were in Kiribati — the main island in Kiribati, Tarawa, is 60 kilometers long, but it’s only about 200 meters wide.
Jon Ryan Jensen: Yeah, meters. We were talking about kicking a football or a soccer ball from one side to the other.
13:45
Brian K. Ashton: Right. So, you know, geographically, it’s very challenging in Kiribati. And there aren’t really any jobs there. But even the young people, they’re digital natives, and so it has not been a huge challenge to get them to do education online. We’ve got to work to make sure that they have access to the internet consistently, but they’re very willing to do that, and they see the opportunity. They see that they can stay in their home country and have a career, and that wasn’t possible in the past.
In fact, let me just share with you a quick story. Elder [Iotua] Tune, who is the Area Seventy in Kiribati, he had to leave Kiribati and go to Tonga for high school. While he was there, he heard President Spencer W. Kimball say, “If you’re from Tonga, the land of your inheritance is in Tonga. And if you’re from Samoa, the land of your inheritance is in Samoa.” And he said to me, “I heard in my mind, ‘If you’re from Kiribati, the land of your inheritance is in Kiribati.’” So he went to BYU–Hawaii for his bachelor’s degree then to BYU for a master’s degree, had offers to stay in the United States but kept hearing this voice, “The land of your inheritances in Kiribati.” He went back to Kiribati. He eventually ran the Church school there, made great sacrifices to be there.
In 1996, Elder L. Tom Perry came to create the first stake in Kiribati. And he pulled Elder Tune aside, and he said, “Elder Tune, there is a day when remote education will come to Kiribati, and you will have all the opportunities that we have in other places.” And as we were there, we did these devotionals where we said to people, “Enroll in BYU–Pathway, and you can start with what we call a tier-one remote job, and then that’ll lead to a tier-two job and a tier-three job, which gets you to what we call a Church living wage, where you make enough money to support a family, educate your children, and serve in the Church as a bishop or in Relief Society and still get six hours of sleep a night.
Jon Ryan Jensen: Which for many parts of the world, that’s a luxury, everything you just said.
16:01
Brian K. Ashton: That’s right. And to be able to work just one job, right? So, Elder Tune started to cry, and he said, “Today that prophecy is fulfilled.” And so we went forward and said to these students, “look, you can have education. You can stay home for that education. You know, if you want to go on to BYU–Hawaii, you can, but you can stay home for that education. You can have a job here. You can raise a family. Here you can build the Church here.” We even told them there are foundations that will help them get computers if they don’t have computers. So it was just a remarkable trip.
16:36
Jon Ryan Jensen: I think back while you were serving on the Sunday School presidency, that was the same time when “Come, Follow Me” is coming out, when the new children and youth program was being developed, and one of the discussions that was being had was about mentorship. And when I met Elder Tune, I thought that, “He’s a mentor for an entire island.”
Brian K. Ashton: For an entire nation, yeah.
16:56
Matt Eyring: I’ll just say I heard the minister of Fiji speak once at BYU–Hawaii, and she said, “We’re so grateful for this amazing environment, everything that you’re teaching our students, our people here. We just have one favor of you, and that is: Please bring our children home. Let them come home.” And I think not only for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its leadership and leaderships in families, but the leadership of these nations. Think of the amazing change it is that you can get a high-quality, accredited U.S. education at a very, very affordable cost for everyone. Everyone that has a desire to get it can get it and has economic opportunity after that attached to it. Kiribati is an island nation, many islands, but it’s $250 million, a little bit less than that, of GDP, and this, BYU–Pathway represents the ability to have everyone educated, everyone have a job, and for folks to stay and develop that nation. And that’s significant.
18:06
Jon Ryan Jensen: We’ve talked about those who are, you know, maybe starting from an elementary education level and moving their way up, but they’re also, I think, in inherent in what you’re talking about, opportunities for those who’ve never had a chance, who may already be parents, who may be a stay-at-home mom, or maybe never had any other educational opportunities.
What are the chances of those kinds of parents or nontraditional students to participate in Pathway? Is this an opportunity available to them as well?
18:35
Brian K. Ashton: Absolutely. We don’t require a high school degree. Our foundational program, which we call PathwayConnect, will help students who haven’t finished high school to succeed. In fact, we find that those who complete PathwayConnect often do better than students on campus who haven’t had that opportunity. So that really helps. And this matters a lot. In most countries around the world, you are put on a university track somewhere around age 12, and if you’re not showing university-level skills or potential, I guess I should say, at that point, there’s no chance you’re ever going to go to university.
In fact, in some places in the Pacific, for example, it’s one-third of the school can take the test to figure out if they’re going to go to university. It doesn’t matter if you’re in this bottom two-thirds, it doesn’t matter if you’re smarter or more academically qualified than everybody else in your country. If you’re in the bottom two-thirds, you don’t have the chance. And what we say often is that intelligence is equally distributed, but opportunity is not. BYU–Pathway allows opportunity to be equally distributed, and that’s one of the gifts of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Church of Jesus Christ, that it’s giving to the world.
20:03
Matt Eyring: And I would say that those gaps in opportunity in many countries are large. The minister of education in Ethiopia was talking about having only about 135,000 university seats for the graduating seniors in a graduating class of 12th grade of 700,000. In Nigeria, I think they’re graduating 2 million and have seats for less than half of them. And so this gap in opportunity is very, very large.
20:35
Brian K. Ashton: In fact, in Africa as a whole, there’s only seats in universities for 9% of the college-aged youth. BYU–Pathway, you know, you’ve got to live by our standards. You’ve got to obey the honor code after PathwayConnect. But we have an unlimited number of seats because we’re online, and we can do a lot of good helping those who otherwise haven’t had access to education, higher education.
21:05
Jon Ryan Jensen: So with those kinds of numbers in terms of opportunity, and with the changes that you’ve had to make the program more accessible to individuals around the world, what has that growth looked like, maybe since that time that you sat down at BYU–Idaho to have that conversation the first time? What does it look like from there to where we are today?
21:23
Brian K. Ashton: Yeah, let me give you a bit of a timeline of what has happened at BYU–Pathway. So, it started in 2009, and it was really, of course, Elder Kim B. Clark would tell you that it came by inspiration and revelation, and it did, but he was really the one who proposed it. And there were a number of people who worked on it at that time, including Elder Clark G. Gilbert, Henry Eyring, J.D. Griffith, Rob Eaton and others. And then very quickly, President Eyring actually suggested — I should back up. I should say, in 2009, we just had three locations: Manhattan; Nampa, Idaho; and Mesa, Arizona.
22:06
Jon Ryan Jensen: Diverse by U.S. standards.
Brian K. Ashton: Yes. By 2010 though, President Eyring was encouraging us to go international. And so we went to Mexico City, and then to Ghana, to Accra, Ghana.
Jon Ryan Jensen: And President Henry B. Eyring is making that suggestion at that point, in 2010.
Brian K. Ashton: In 2010, right. And so we did. And it grew. I don’t remember the numbers; I think we were 35,000, maybe 40,000 students, when I joined in 2018. In 2017, we spun out of BYU–Idaho and became our own institution, located here in Salt Lake City. Today, we’re over 70,000 students, and next year, we expect that we’ll be well over 80,000 students. Africa is the real amazing thing that’s happening. Currently, we have over 25,000 students just in Africa.
23:01
Jon Ryan Jensen: Those are huge numbers.
Matt Eyring: We have 10,000 in Nigeria alone.
Jon Ryan Jensen: I think for a number of members of the Church, they might hear those numbers and not know exactly how to calculate what that means, but it also means something important when we look at how the Church is growing in those places as well, when we see how the temples have been announced to dot the African continent.
What is the correlation that you see between the gathering that President Russell M. Nelson has been talking about so much during his tenure as Prophet and President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the educational opportunities that BYU–Pathway is presenting people?
23:42
Brian K. Ashton: Yeah, great question. First of all, if you want to put just our size in perspective, if you take the rest of the universities, excluding Seminaries and Institutes, in the Church Educational System, they have fewer students than BYU–Pathway does. And we’ve only just begun; we’ll grow much, much bigger. In terms of the gathering, President Nelson has indicated that the Lord is gathering His people and fulfilling the covenants that He made with ancient Israel, right? One of those covenants was that He would establish His people.
And I love this scripture that is in Isaiah 49. This is what the Lord said in verse 8: “Thus saith the Lord, In an acceptable time have I heard thee” — really referring to Zion there — “and in a day of salvation have I helped thee: and I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages.” Now, let me just talk about what “establish” means. As I go through the scriptures, what I understand — so this is my definition, Brian Ashton’s definition of “established” — is that in the broad gospel sense, establish means to have the gospel, to have covenants with the Lord, to have the priesthood, local priesthood leaders, access to the temple, family, the ability to learn by study and by faith, the ability to support one’s family, a future, including for one’s children’s safety and hope.
Many members of the Church don’t have that. Oftentimes, it’s the economy of their country, especially internationally. But even here in the United States, there are people who come from very difficult family situations. They’re not established. The Lord wants to make them established. And of course, ultimately, what established means is that we live in an exalted state with our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. So when the Lord says that He’s made this covenant to establish the earth, He then explains why: “to cause to inherit the desolate heritages.”
So, I talk with students all the time who have these difficult home situations, and they want to be established. They want all the blessings of the gospel. We go to these countries throughout the world where there are no jobs, there’s no safety, there’s no future. They want to leave, and the Lord wants them to stay in those countries so they can be with their families, and so they can build up the Church. BYU–Pathway and the broader Church Educational System are some of the tools that the Lord is using to make that happen. If you can get education and you can get a remote job, you can stay in Kiribati, for example, and build your life there.
26:34
Jon Ryan Jensen: When I listen to everything you just explained, from the scripture to the covenants, I think about the baptismal covenant. We talk a lot about mourning with those who mourn, but sharing what we have with those who don’t have is a part of that. And that’s not just substance, that’s not just physical substance, but it comes in the form of sharing educational opportunities, sharing knowledge, and I hear some of that in what you’re saying as well.
For members who are saying, “Well, I served a mission in the places that you’re talking about, and I saw they didn’t have opportunities, I want a chance to help give back to,” how can a member of the Church help further the cause of what’s happening with BYU–Pathway?
27:13
Brian K. Ashton: Well, we have a lot of volunteer opportunities, and I’m going to let Matt talk about some of those, but we have an email address. It’s: volunteerpathway@byupathway.org, and if you’re interested in any of these opportunities or just have a thought, email us at volunteerpathway@byupathway.org.
27:38
Matt Eyring: I think President [Gordon B.] Hinckley said that the strength of the Church is not in its finances, it’s in the faith of its members. I think it’s very important to realize that almost everyone has something to offer in the Lord’s storehouse of their own talents to BYU–Pathway. I have been amazed as we’ve had people call us and say, “Hey, I got out of the temple,” or “I just felt I needed to give you a call. I’m not really sure what, but I want to help out with BYU–Pathway.” And the question then becomes, “Tell me about your life. Tell me what you do.” And as they lay out the history of events in their lives, where they served missions, even where they’re working.
You know, we get calls from an accountant that says, “I really don’t know how I’m going to help. I just do accounting.” But we have internships in accounting and bookkeeping that are leading to jobs. Someone will say, “I’m a digital marketer.” The Lord is able to use the talents of His people on a global scale in ways that have never been true before. My wife actually is mentoring and talking with Nigerians, Ugandans, people in the Pacific. We’re on again this afternoon, both of us, with some of the students. The love, the Spirit, the training, the life experiences that you’ve had can all be used by the Lord on a global scale right now through BYU–Pathway.
29:11
Jon Ryan Jensen: So if I can repeat back to you what I think I heard you say: If you’re a digital marketer, it’s not that BYU–Pathway needs you as a digital marketer to market BYU–Pathway, necessarily, but by being what you are, you may be in a position to provide an opportunity for an internship to someone else. And so by being what you are, you can share opportunities with them. And also, you might not see yourself as having a ton of skills and knowledge, but you have more than you realize, and more than many others in the world who need what you have.
29:45
Matt Eyring: And even more than that, you’ll find that the experiences you’ve had in life have prepared you for the moment to serve. So, digital marketing is a great example. We had a volunteer come and say, “I’ve just had a feeling that I ought to create some AI tools that would help people do digital marketing campaigns easily, no matter where you are in the world, and they could easily be marketed. And by the way, here’s a marketplace where the skills could be shown.” And it’s not great leadership, in my opinion, on anyone’s part, to organize it all; it’s the Holy Ghost. It’s the Lord Himself who’s reaching out to the storehouse that’s been created now over hundreds of years in the Church and inspiring people to know how they can help. It is amazing, and it’s happened dozens and dozens and dozens of times. It happened today several times. I know that what’s going on in the gathering is something global among the Church base.
30:45
Brian K. Ashton: In fact, a lot of our remote jobs have come because people have followed the pattern in [Doctrine and Covenants] 58. You’ll recall [Doctrine and Covenants] 58 says, “Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness.” And so, you know, look, we’re happy to give you thoughts on things you could do. We’re happy to involve you in things we already have going. But the Lord will guide people to help in this cause.
31:18
Matt Eyring: The Church has leaders in almost every industry and almost every endeavor activity that are experts at the top of their fields. They’re in positions of responsibility. And those leaders are coming to help the students. And I’ll give you some improbable examples, improbable in terms of success, which is: We’ve had heads of hedge funds or private equity firms or venture capital, we’ve had all three of those come and say, “Is there a way I could help?”
And when they begin to get involved with the students, they start believing what President Ashton just talked about, which is intelligence is equally distributed around the world, but opportunity is not. And they begin to think and say, “What would the track be to have somebody from Lagos, Nigeria, make it from very humble beginnings, or come right back from a mission, and be able to get a tier-one job, just a starter job, it’s not at a Church living wage yet, and then progress and begin to learn skills where they would qualify themselves to be able to work eventually for jobs with Goldman Sachs, or for jobs with JPMorganChase, or for these other jobs?”
And they began to work with curriculum to set that path. They began to mentor those students. They began to set up those internships. And the first cases are coming through, and I give you several of them, where people are literally starting with next to nothing. They’re realizing spiritually who they are, that they’re sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father. They’re feeling the Holy Ghost, and they’re becoming things that only their Heavenly Father could have imagined that they could become. And that’s all coming because of volunteers who are being touched by the Holy Ghost that are now having global impact. And it’s a miracle like I’ve never seen before.
33:11
Brian K. Ashton: Let me share one other opportunity that’s available. One of the things that makes BYU–Pathway unique is most online universities are just that; they’re online. And you go off in your home, and you do your homework. and you submit it online, and you get your feedback online. It’s just all online. You never interact with anyone. We think interaction with your fellow students is really important, and so in Pathway, there’s things that happen throughout your whole program, your whole degree, where you interact with others. But in PathwayConnect, our foundational program, you meet with a group of students, either online or in person, every week, and there are missionaries who facilitate those gatherings. The students run them, but the missionaries help; provide confidence, work with these students, make sure that things are happening. And we’re always in need of those types of missionaries. You can work with a gathering of about 25 to 30 students, you can see them grow, and it takes about five hours a week. And if you do it online, you can do it anywhere in the world at just about any time of the day.
34:22
Matt Eyring: And if you speak English and can understand what I’m saying, you can be an enormous help to the students whose English needs to improve to get into BYU–Pathway and then needs to further improve so they’re able to get a remote job. So when we say that there’s a role for everyone, we mean there’s really a role for everyone. And the impact is huge. You think, “Well, all I have is an hour or two to speak to a student.” In addition to the mentorship, just having their English improved by that amount is going to double their eventual salary and put them on a career track. So it’s a variety of things, and everyone can come to the table with the skills and experiences that the Lord has blessed them with.
Jon Ryan Jensen: And they’re getting somebody in their corner who they didn’t even know.
35:05
Matt Eyring: They are, absolutely. And we often say we can’t get anyone in education and we don’t give anyone a job, but we walk alongside of that student. It just isn’t a digital offering. It’s an offering where we walk alongside of the students from day one, really to give them confidence, but more importantly to help them feel the Holy Ghost. I mean, as the Savior walked with His disciples, they got very nervous at the end of His life, saying, “We’ve had this amazing journey with You, where we’ve walked side by side.” And He said, “Don’t worry; the Holy Ghost is going to come to you, send the Holy Ghost, which will teach you all things.” And these students are learning to hear the Spirit. So they not only have this physical — or virtual, in our case, with Zoom — companionship, with all these volunteers, with the gathering missionaries, with their instructors, with everyone. They’re also learning how to be guided by the Holy Ghost and learn by the Holy Ghost in their job search and their education and everything else. And that’s transformational.
36:07
Jon Ryan Jensen: One of the things President Ashton, when you were talking, it sounds like part of that experience is a counseling experience, just like what we do in wards and stakes every single week in the Church.
36:18
Brian K. Ashton: Yeah, let me give you an example. We were in Kenya earlier this year, and we had with us a group of volunteers. And one of the things we thought we would do is get some students together and just put them at tables with some of these volunteers, and most of them came as couples, and so one couple would sit at a table, and they might have four students with them. And you had about 15 minutes per — we rotated, but you had about 15 minutes with these students — and they just talked in a council. The students came with questions, the volunteers came with ideas and with experience, and they just talked.
And we did this for a little over an hour. As we walked out, I can’t tell you how many students came up to me and said, “President Ashton, that was transformative. I have never had that experience in my life.” You know, intelligence is equally distributed. Opportunity is not. These students oftentimes have not even had the opportunity to get good advice from parents, to get good advice from teachers. Fact, in many other school systems, you can’t ask questions. You just memorize what’s spoon-fed to you. And so to have this opportunity to take someone who has experience in the gospel, has experience in life and in business and in a career, is just transformative for them.
37:50
Matt Eyring: And I’ll say on that same trip to Nairobi, speaking to all the returned missionaries that may be listening to us overseas, that there is great hope now. We did a visit after that roundtable. We went out to a student named Timothy’s house, my wife and I, and he lived in very, very humble circumstances. His room was immaculate, so you’ve got to credit his mission president, as the shoes were arranged perfectly. But it was very, very humble. He got up at 4 a.m. to walk an hour to collect bills as a property manager for 12 hours a day at 30 cents an hour. He would then study at night. He chose to live by himself in this little apartment, humble, humble apartment next to the church so that he could get a little bit of internet and go and study and sleep four hours a night, and then wake up at four o’clock and do it all again.
He is now — Timothy is now — in our bookkeeping internship in the accounting track, becoming QuickBooks certified, which would give him an opportunity, a job that would pay multiples of what he was earning. But more importantly, he is interfacing with all these amazing volunteers, all these coaches, the ones Brian was talking about that are talking to our students, many of them, they’re returned mission presidents, they’re Area Seventies, there’s faithful members throughout that are giving him counsel and love and advice and that are on WhatsApp with him.
And so there is amazing hope coming home from the mission. He came home from Ghana to Nairobi, is in BYU–Pathway now, and has this companionship again of this amazing force that’s out there looking after these kids and directed by God, really, and it’s giving hope. That is the word that I think I’d use for those students, they got at the table. These amazing volunteers were talking to them, and what you felt in that room was the Spirit, and it was the Spirit saying, “There’s hope for a brighter future for you.”
39:57
Brian K. Ashton: Right. And it’s not just happening internationally, either. I heard, I actually got an email from a student yesterday. This is a mom here in the United States who just completed her degree through BYU–Pathway at BYU–Idaho. And this is what she said. She said: I’ve become so much more than I used to be before Pathway. My husband tells me I’m a completely different person. I have confidence, I have a voice, and I have and can recognize my abilities. Fear used to slow me down, but now I am able to move past my fears. I’m starting swimming lessons at 56 because I never learned to swim, and now I have the confidence to try. I had never before been physically pushed by the Spirit, until the day he pushed me to start Pathway. It’s been an amazing experience, and I just cannot put into words the magnitude of the blessing it’s been in my life.
40:56
Jon Ryan Jensen: Those are big blessings. The more that we’ve talked about BYU–Pathway, the more I recognize that this is, to me, a drastically different way of approaching education. What are some of the other ways that BYU–Pathway defies current trends in education?
41:15
Brian K. Ashton: Well, we’ve talked about we have a spiritual foundation, right? Well, most universities are abandoning that. Second one is cost. I mean, BYU–Pathway is the lowest-cost bachelor’s degree in the United States and in most countries in the world. So in the United States, before scholarships, and everyone can get a scholarship, the entire cost of bachelor’s degree is $6,200. In many of our international countries, it’s under $1,500, and in the poorest of countries, it’s under $500 and sometimes under $300. So thanks to subsidies from the Church, but also the structure, this online structure, we’re able to keep our costs quite low, but provide these high-quality, U.S. accredited degrees.
42:00
Jon Ryan Jensen: As a father of teenagers, I mean, I know exactly what you’re talking about, because so frequently right now, when you’re talking to counselors, the first conversation is, “How much money do you have? Because that’s going to help us determine what schools you even apply to.” This is a totally different paradigm.
42:16
Brian K. Ashton: And many students are saying now it’s not worth it to go to college, because you’ll take on so much debt, you’ll never get a positive return on investment. BYU–Pathway, because of the Church’s subsidy and because of the way we’re structured, is the best value in education, pretty much anywhere in the world. You know, we talked about certificate-first. Another innovation is we use blocks. We don’t use semesters. So instead of having a 14-week term, we have a seven-week term. Turns out, the advantage of those is you’re more likely to finish. You actually retain the material better than if you’re on a semester schedule. There’s lots and lots of benefits to that. It’s easier to persist when things happen, and things come up in life, if you know you’re going to be done in seven weeks instead of 14. So we think that’s a huge thing.
Another huge one is through BYU–Idaho and Ensign College, we are the only institution in the United States that has a three-year bachelor’s degree. It’s 90 credits. That’s been done in Europe for years. It’s accepted by employers just like a four-year degree is. It’s accepted by graduate schools. But you can only get it through BYU–Pathway, you know. And then we’ve talked about improving our employment along the way in remote jobs. But I think one last thing that makes us different, education has always been a scarce resource. That’s why it’s so expensive.
The thought has been, “You have to be smart.” I don’t even know what “smart” means, you know. Everyone is a child of God. We all have divine potential. We can all learn. You just need to be given the opportunity and have someone show some confidence in you. It’s the Holy Ghost who is the teacher and witness of all truth. We’re going to help you get the Holy Ghost. And if you want to learn, I’ve learned it doesn’t matter how quote “smart” you are. What matters is, “Do you have a desire? Do you have the discipline to do the work? And can you get the Holy Ghost in your life?” And we will help you to do that. So that’s what really sets us apart, those things.
Jon Ryan Jensen: They’re pretty big things.
Brian K. Ashton: They’re big things.
44:36
Jon Ryan Jensen: I love it. You’ve talked a couple of times during the podcast about Elder Kim B. Clark. And as the former president of BYU–Idaho and someone who was instrumental in creating BYU–Pathway, he talked about receiving a distinct impression to not require an ecclesiastical endorsement for the first year of BYU–Pathway. Different than the other schools within CES.
Why has that been important? And do you feel that’s opened doors elsewhere for missionary work or for furthering education for those individuals?
45:10
Brian K. Ashton: That has been a foundational decision that has really shaped who BYU–Pathway is and how it can bless people’s lives. So if you want to go to BYU, you want to go to BYU–Idaho, you should have a strong testimony of the gospel. You don’t have to know everything perfectly, but it is designed for those who are, you know, ready to move forward with a strong testimony of the gospel. Seminaries and Institutes and BYU–Pathway, particularly PathwayConnect, are designed for people who are maybe still growing more than others in their testimony. And so while PathwayConnect is now only about 21 weeks — it’s no longer a year; it’s about half a year — it’s allowed people to come get involved in Church education who maybe weren’t active, who maybe were really struggling with their testimony.
What we have found is that those in that kind of a situation, they take religion through institute; they hear the words of prophets and the scriptures in their curriculum, in the academic curriculum; they pray; they read their scriptures every day. And roughly 10% of our students, when they join BYU–Pathway, we’re not regularly attending church. Almost all of those come back to the gospel, go back to the temple, or go to the temple for the first time, make additional covenants with Jesus Christ. We also see that we have about 10,000 nonmembers currently, friends of the Church. They’re here, in most cases, because they want a spiritual foundation in their education. And many, many of those choose to make covenants with Jesus Christ through baptism.
47:03
Matt Eyring: When I was in Boston and we were just starting up some of our gatherings, one of the students was a young divorced mother, a single mom, who was a nurse and had actually run into some legal problems and was going through that process, that judicial process.
One of the things that impressed me so much about that group, that gathering group that met every week, was the support that they gave that young mom as she progressed. President Ashton talked about how over 10% of those who joined are less active, and we have lots of those who are friends of the Church. It’s an incredibly spiritual environment for growth. That class rallied around her, and toward the end of PathwayConnect, she was going through a hearing with a judge who was looking for the progress that she had made and evaluating where she is, and said, “You’re a BYU–Pathway student, and that’s showing me the kind of progress that you’re making.”
In that same group, there was another woman who, because of arthritis, couldn’t type, where the class would gather around and help fulfill those assignments. I think Elder Gilbert gave a talk on the parable of the slope, I think it was called, but it talks about progress that we make. And I was reminded watching these early BYU–Pathway students that the plan of salvation is about progress. It’s not about the intercept of where people start, but it’s about the progress that they are making. And I’ve seen examples over and over and over again where BYU–Pathway provides progress and light for every single person that’s a part of it.
Jon Ryan Jensen: I love the parable of the slope. And the Church produced a video based on that, a great video with a lot of different applications. I’m glad that you brought that up.
49:06
Matt Eyring: The Savior, when He taught people, would not only take care of their spiritual needs, but also their other most pressing needs. Many in His audience were blind, deaf, halt, maimed, leprous, lacking food and water. He was very sensitive to the fact that the audience who was listening to Him might be hungry or thirsty. And before He gave these messages and declared His divinity and invited people to follow Him, He healed them. It is a great blessing to be part of an organization that offers that type of healing from educational poverty, from economic poverty, and reaches out with the blessings to all of God’s children. When I think about the gathering of Israel and how inclusive that is, education, as President Ashton has pointed out, tends to be exclusive. It’s who can’t participate. It’s who ranks higher than another person. It’s what you can afford. It’s who can go and who can’t.
Jon Ryan Jensen: It’s, “You pitch me on why I should let you be here.”
50:19
Matt Eyring: Exactly. But the Lord operates in a different way. I think His end goal is to bless us with spiritual blessings, to overcome spiritual poverty. That is what He does. But in that process, He, as He gathers Israel, He makes educational opportunities available, economic opportunities, all the opportunities that you would need to grow to make that decision to “come, follow me.”
50:48
Brian K. Ashton: One of the things I love about what the Church is trying to do here is they want to give education to the whole world. I love this quote from President Jeffrey R. Holland, who told our staff, he said, “BYU–Pathway is an answer to my 50-year prayer that we could find an equitable way to serve the entire Church with the blessings of education,” and it’s available to everybody today.
51:14
Jon Ryan Jensen: And that’s coming from someone who, in his experience, he was also president of one of the Church’s schools. He’s seen that need for a long time.
Brian K. Ashton: And Church commissioner of education. He actually told us that, as a very young commissioner of Church education, he came back from a trip overseas and thought, “We have to do more for these people.” And so for 50 years, he’s been praying to figure out how can we help these people? But it’s happening.
51:41
Jon Ryan Jensen: And so an Apostle of the Lord is seeing this as an answer to his own prayers, but it’s the answer to the prayers of individuals as well. Matt, I know you’ve seen some of these standout stories. Would you mind sharing one of those with us?
51:54
Matt Eyring: Yeah, it’s the most common comment we get from the students was, “I was in tremendous difficulty, tremendous personal difficulty.” And often, very faithful members who are serving, I mean, they’ll often have a calling or to be full-time students, face a very difficult life at home. Many of them aren’t getting three meals a day, and they’re pleading with their Heavenly Father on their knees at night that somehow He’ll send the miracle.
And so, you know, just two examples of this. One is Grace from Uganda. She’s a single mom of four daughters who got married early, divorced early, and was really foraging for food for those kids at the time that her bishop at BYU–Pathway recommended her. And she’s been one of those students that’s just had marvelous academic success and marvelous success in her life. And so she’s graduated with an Ensign College online degree in communications. But during that time, she’s been employed as a market research analyst for a venture capital firm in a remote job, and then with an asset management firm, and she was given an offer from that last firm, but we’re grateful that she actually took an offer to run the Africa Central Area, the entire area and interface with the area presidency in field operations to help us on the ground.
And that kind of story from start to end is indicative of the progress these students make. And I could tell these all day from all over the world that Abiola in Nigeria, he had a degree in biochemistry. And this is interesting. We actually have a fair number of the population that has a bachelor’s degree. I met another electrical engineer in Nigeria, and I said to her, “Why are you signing up for BYU–Pathway?” And she said, “Well, I need to get a job that pays well.” And Abiola was like that. He went to BYU–Pathway, and then he’s graduated with a business degree from BYU–Idaho online, and a hedge fund based out of the U.S. hired him to be an equity analyst in frontier markets, like Africa, to take a look at companies there.
And these are the types of examples of students who are making progress in their lives — holistically, I think, most important spiritually — but are going from that initial state where they’re pleading for blessings from their Heavenly Father. They’re on their knees. They are putting in the work and the time, but they have the opportunity to receive all the blessings that their Heavenly Father has intended for them on this earth, and that is such a blessing to witness the miracles of the Lord in the lives of these students.
54:32
Jon Ryan Jensen: I’m so glad that the two of you have been able to come in today and share some of these stories. It’s not hypothetical, it’s not “It may bless,” but these are the stories of real people who have really been blessed by the BYU–Pathway program. Thanks for sharing those.
We have a tradition at the Church News podcast to allow our guests to have the final word. And so the final question that I would ask each of you, — Matt first, President Ashton second — is: What do you know now, now that you have seen everything you’ve seen, the blessings, the miracles you’ve seen, as you have participated with BYU–Pathway?
55:08
Matt Eyring: I think I knew this before, but I didn’t know it. I hadn’t felt it as deeply as I do. That I can bear my testimony that this is the Lord’s work and His Church and His kingdom, not ours. And the reason I know that on a much deeper level is I’ve watched dozens and dozens, and now maybe even hundreds, of cases where He’s reached out individually across the world to meet the needs of His children.
And those are not only the children that might be in poverty, those lacking education, those who are the sick and the afflicted, but He’s also reached out to me and the people that I work with who needed the opportunity, who needed to learn from those around the world who have such great faith in the Savior, Jesus Christ, and in His power to provide miracles and blessings. And because of that, I know He’s guiding this work. I’ve seen the blessings in numerous lives of students across the globe, numerous volunteers, and I know that He is pulling all this together. It’s not us. This is His work, not ours, and it’s a great, great privilege to be involved with it.
56:37
Brian K. Ashton: Like Matt, I know the Lord is doing this work Himself. I say frequently to our team, “I show up to work, and miracles happen, and I haven’t had anything to do with them.” In fact, I was reading in 3 Nephi 20 the other day, and the Lord to the Nephites was describing the gathering in our day and helping people become established. And He said this — and this is 3 Nephi 20, verse 19, at the very end — after describing what He was going to do, He said, “And behold, I am he who doeth it.”
If this is the Lord’s work, He’s doing it. He lets us participate. I’m so grateful to be able to participate. It’s blessed my life. It’s blessed my family. I love seeing these students grow, and those who are involved come closer to the Savior, but he’s doing it. And I’m kidding myself if I think I’m really making much of a difference. So that’s one.
I think the second thing is it is such a blessing to be led by prophets and apostles. There’s no way this happens without their guidance. And the blessings come from being led by prophets and apostles. The Lord’s approbation. You know, we’re tackling some of the hardest problems on earth, global poverty. The smartest people in the world for decades have spent billions, if not trillions, of dollars to try to solve that. And they really haven’t made a dent. And yet, we see it in thousands and thousands of our students in some of the most desolate places on earth. And they’re able to become established, grow in the gospel, become leaders in their homes, the Church, their communities and their nations. That doesn’t happen without the guidance of prophets and apostles and the Lord’s help.
So I bear witness that we are led by prophets and apostles. President Nelson is a prophet of God, and as I’ve applied his teachings in my life, it has made all the difference. We have a Heavenly Father who loves us, who knows us, and a Savior who has done everything He can to make it so we can return and live with our Heavenly Father and have the blessings we need here and to be happy.
59:15
Jon Ryan Jensen: Thank you for listening to the Church News podcast. I’m your host, Church News editor Jon Ryan Jensen. I hope you learned something today about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and had your faith in the Savior increase by looking through the Church News window as a living record of the Restoration. Please subscribe, rate and review this podcast so it can be accessible to more people. And if you enjoyed the messages we shared today, please share the podcast with others. Thanks to our guests; to my producer, KellieAnn Halvorsen; and to others who make this podcast possible. Join us every week for a new episode. Find us on your favorite podcasting channels or with other news and updates about the Church on TheChurchNews.com or on the Church News app.
