College Saver: helping millions earn their college degree

A multi-platform redesign to reignite membership growth

Study.com is an online education platform. Its flagship product, College Saver, lets adult learners earn college credit through self-paced online courses that transfer to degree programs at 2,000+ partner universities. College Saver accounts for 75% of company revenue, and in 2024 membership grew only +9.4% — down significantly from prior years — even as the market opportunity (66M current and aspiring learners) remained large.

Leadership set an open-ended directive: redesign College Saver so that it attracts, retains, and delivers more value to our learners. I led design end-to-end on the responsive web experience alongside new native iOS and Android apps.

Grounding the redesign in behavioral evidence

The mission was intentionally broad. To make it actionable, I started with two questions:

• What's failing users in the current experience?
• What behaviors would drive our desired business outcomes?

Data insights revealed the specific user behaviors most likely to drive our intended business outcomes:

• Learners who complete their first course within 7 days enroll in 2 additional courses on average.
• Learners who pass at least one course retain their subscription for longer.
• Learners who are happy with the experience are measurably more likely to promote the product to others.

That defined our design approach: help learners complete courses faster, pass more of them, and enjoy the experience along the way.

Three principles, grounded in UX heuristics and learning science

Each principle addresses a specific breakdown in the legacy experience and anchored every design decision:

• Clarity: eliminate ambiguity about what a course requires and how to get started.
• Guidance: keep learners moving through the course efficiently, without removing user choice.
• Motivation: surface progress and relevance so learners stay engaged.

Higher pass rates, stronger retention, and fewer refunds

The redesign delivered against every leg of the strategy — more courses per member, more members reaching a second billing cycle, and a measurable drop in support tickets and refunds.