Forge is a full-time growth year that builds what a degree is supposed to and often doesn't: how to work, communicate, handle money, use AI, take part as a citizen, and make things well. Near the cost of community college. Ending in a job, not just a diploma.
Full-time, 11 months. You bring your own housing, food, and laptop, exactly like a commuter student. Forge brings the rest.
Pick the seat you're in. The pitch is honest either way — these are just the parts that matter most to you.
Whether you're 19 and not sold on college, or 40 and starting over, you leave with real skills, real work behind you, and a real next step.
You want your kid to become capable and independent. You don't want six figures of loans for a degree that may not lead anywhere. This is the third option.
The capital-heavy parts of a college — where students live, eat, and compute — sit on the student, not the balance sheet. What's left is small enough to franchise.
Mastery instead of seat-time. A tiny staff, because most of the week is supervised studio and real work, not lectures. Practitioners teach the evenings.
A closed campus, a shuttered school, a half-empty office park, a fading main-street anchor. Forge needs only basic space — a floor, some rooms, and wifi.
This is a concept heading into its first pilot, not a proven institution. Here's what we don't yet know, said plainly — and the honest answers to the obvious objections are below.
Each runs all year and is revisited four times, each pass harder and closer to real work. You learn them to use them, not to bank them for a test.
The trick: only a sliver of the week is expensive, salaried teaching. The rest is supervised studio, real work, and practitioners who teach the evenings the space would otherwise sit dark.
Structured, AI-assisted modules and project work, with two facilitators coaching the floor. About 20 hours a week.
One focused class a day, led by core staff, rotating through the seven domains. Seven and a half hours a week.
A banker, an artist, a civic leader teach labs; weekends are project sprints and portfolio work.
Diagnostics, habits, a personal roadmap, and your own first real budget.
Systematic work across every domain; first certifications; a civic or community project.
Pick a track and go deep; employer-connected projects; a work portfolio.
A 2–3 day-a-week apprenticeship; certifications finished; an independence plan.
A public showcase, a finished portfolio, and a secured next step.
No accreditation, so the proof is concrete and portable: stacked industry certifications, passed finance and digital-literacy assessments, documented apprenticeship hours, and a portfolio spanning work, writing, a civic project, and an exhibited creative piece. Every graduate exits into one of these.
A college needs dorms, dining, labs, and a hundred million in deferred maintenance. Forge needs a floor, some rooms, and wifi — because the student carries their own housing, food, and computer, exactly as every commuter already does.
Housing, food, a laptop, notebooks, and transportation — the capital-heavy parts that never touch an operator's books.
A basic ~5,000 sf space, a director and two facilitators hired locally, and roots in the community.
The full curriculum, the AI-native learning platform, certification partnerships at volume, and the playbook to run it all.
Every closed college and shuttered school is a candidate location with a motivated host. Pennsylvania alone frees seven Penn State campuses after 2027.
These are projections from a built cost model, not results. That distinction matters, and we keep it.
Built on Pittsburgh-metro commercial rents and regional education salaries. Franchise fee, royalty, and platform figures are proposed and adjustable. Nothing here is an offer of a franchise, a security, or a guaranteed outcome.
If any of these don't hold up for you, that's worth saying. We'd rather earn a skeptic than win a believer who didn't look closely.
A cohort to join, a model to fund, a building to fill, or a hard question we haven't answered yet. Tell us which, and we'll send the right thing.