How the largest health educator in the U.S. is tackling a growing job gap

When Steve Beard took on the role of CEO of a higher education company Adtalem Global Education In 2021, the company experienced a significant strategic shift. Gaps in healthcare workforce levels have been identified and are expected to widen. This led Adtalem to abandon its other education businesses and focus solely on healthcare training.

At that moment, Beard said, the company could have changed its name to “claim a different positioning.” But with the healthcare workforce increasingly fragile, the company wanted to make sure it was a crucial part of the solution to this problem before making a new statement.

Last week, Adtalem announced it would change its name to Covista, which Beard said reflects what the company has done so far, but also what it sees for the future.

“97,000 undergraduates, 385,000 graduates and 24,000 healthcare students graduate each year,” Beard said. “We’re just getting started. There’s a tremendous opportunity to continue to grow this platform, to increase the size of these institutions, to attract even more talent that can immediately enter the U.S. healthcare space, but also to have a more vocal voice in the role that plays in healthcare delivery in the United States.”

These student numbers position Covista as a major healthcare player in the United States. The 24,000 health care professionals who graduate from the schools each year are more than any other institution and represent approximately 10% of America’s nursing workforce. Covista also trains twice as many physicians as any other school in the U.S. that trains physicians and is the leading provider of veterinary medicine in the U.S., according to its data.

Covista’s healthcare ambitions

Beard said the company has brainstormed several ideas about how a new name could help tell the story. “I’m not a trained marketer, I don’t have a creative background, so it was fascinating to watch the process of coming up with names come together,” Beard said, adding that discussions ranged from the science of using real words versus made-up words, the way certain consonants and vowels evoke an emotional response when spoken, and the interpretation of different words by different languages ​​and cultures.

At Covista, Beard suggests that the made-up word suggests two things: “Co,” which implies the idea of ​​community and sharing, and “Vista,” “the idea of ​​creating a shared vision for the future around healthcare and access to these professions for people who have been excluded from them in the past.”

But there was one message from naming consultants that Beard said stuck with him. “[They] He reminded us every step of the way that a brand is only as important as what’s inside it,” he said. “It’s a promise, and it’s only as valuable as the extent to which people believe that promise was kept.”

A name change is not completely new territory for the entire organization. According to an SEC filing, DeVry Education Group changed its name to Adtalem Global Education in 2017 to “represent all institutions in the group.” At that time, the company’s business was based on three different educational focuses: medical and healthcare, vocational education, and technology and business. This name change also came several months after Adtalem settled litigation with both the FTC and the Department of Education over allegations related to DeVry’s post-graduate job and salary claims. Adtalem sold DeVry in 2018.

The schools that make up Covista won’t be changing their names, but Beard said this renaming moment will allow them to “join a corporate-level vision that is just much broader and much larger” than any school could aspire to on its own.

“It’s about setting the standard even higher than ever before and giving our people permission to think bigger about what they can accomplish individually and think bigger about what we can accomplish together,” Beard said.

Overcoming major challenges in the labor market

This includes Covista taking a leading role in addressing some of the challenges facing the healthcare industry. Last year, the company announced a partnership with Google Cloud to launch an AI skills program designed to teach healthcare students and practicing physicians how to best use the technology in their roles. Covista also launched a new impact program aimed at building and sustaining the healthcare workforce, including working with partners to promote healthcare career exploration and expand mental health and wellness support for healthcare workers.

In the Department of Labor’s most recent report on nonfarm payrolls, which covers the national labor market, health care jobs were again the top sector. Beard said as he looked at the healthcare landscape, the opportunities for Covista excited him.

“I remain optimistic about this, if only because I recognize that the demographics of American society are such that we will need to rely more and more on the health care system,” Beard said. “We have an aging population, we have many more people relying on this system for care and quality of life, and that creates the kind of need for innovation.”

However, the shortage of clinical staff and the impact on the quality of care are challenges that are becoming increasingly acute in the healthcare sector.

According to Covista data, there are more than 8.4 million healthcare job openings in the U.S., which equates to more than two open positions for every unemployed healthcare worker. That puts additional strain on the system and the people who work within it: 73% of healthcare executives and 76% of physicians say staffing shortages affect the quality of care they provide, according to a Covista survey of more than 1,300 physicians and 160 healthcare executives conducted by Gallup.

The survey was conducted as part of the rebranding and Beard said it underscores that this is not just a staffing issue, but a patient care crisis.

“We’ve talked a lot about the chronic challenges in the workforce and the asymmetry between supply and demand,” he said. “What does it mean for the quality of care? What does it mean for the satisfaction of clinical professionals, how they think about their careers and their intention to stay in that career? What do people think about the role of technology in solving this challenge?”

Not surprisingly, Beard says the data suggests that while these shortages are impacting health care providers across the country, the issue is particularly problematic in rural communities. It also varies by medical discipline, with positions such as radiation oncologists and cardiovascular technologists being particularly difficult to fill.

Covista has sought to help address some of these issues through partnerships between its institutions and employers that provide tuition and clinical training opportunities for students who, in return, commit to joining the employer’s workforce upon graduation. One such program between Chamberlin University and Midwest health system SSM Health is expected to produce more than 400 new nurses annually.

“We believe that this model, which we want to replicate in other markets where we can actually create new demand for entry into these occupations, is a way to solve some of these chronic labor shortages where they are most acute,” Beard said.

However, there have been some challenges for the for-profit higher education industry that could impact the number of students participating in these programs. As part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the Trump administration capped federal student loans for college degrees. Additionally, nursing degrees have been removed from the job title, meaning the total credit limit is $100,000, compared to $200,000 for degrees in other medical fields or, for example, law.

“The government is really concerned that people are borrowing too much, maybe they’re taking on too much debt, and we share those concerns,” Beard said. “However, we know from experience that when you bring to market programs that have a high return premium on the investment, debt becomes a high-quality investment that delivers a handsome return.”

Beard said that while these changes will have “some different impacts on higher education,” he believes “the intent behind the policy is sound.”

Policy changes by the Trump administration and cuts in federal healthcare spending are leading to growing concerns about the health of the entire hospital system across the country. While Beard acknowledged these realities, he also said he remains focused on the needs of an aging population that already has gaps in care.

“We remain optimistic that the sheer magnitude of the need, particularly as our population ages, will produce sensible solutions to some of the financing and insurance dynamics and also increase appetite for innovation that will enable healthcare workers to have an even more positive impact on the people they care for every day,” he said.