Columbia University Center for Veteran Transition and Integration

What Columbia University Center for Veteran Transition and Integration does

Columbia University Center for Veteran Transition and Integration (CVTI) is a non-profit academic center founded in 2017 and housed within Columbia University's School of General Studies in New York City. CVTI is purpose-built to support military veterans and service members as they transition into higher education and civilian careers. The center serves as a national hub connecting colleges, universities, veteran service organizations, and employers, and reports impact metrics of 250,000+ constituents served, 1,100+ partner organizations, and 589,000+ collaborative engagements across campuses and communities. Leadership includes founder Curtis Rodgers (Vice Dean of the School of General Studies) and senior advisor Jason Dempsey, a West Point graduate and former White House Fellow recognized as one of the nation's leading experts on military demographics and civilian-military relations.

CVTI's core offerings span free digital content and paid institutional services. Digital products include MOOCs hosted on edX and Columbia Plus (University Studies for Student Veterans, Find Your Calling: Career Transition Principles for Veterans, Attaining Higher Education, Become A Peer Sponsor, Keeping Graduate School on the Horizon), a curated video and resource library, the biannual Common Ground newsletter, and the Summer Seminar Series. Programmatic offerings include Operation Soft Skills workshops, the Narrative Practice Initiative, and Narrative Medicine workshops. Institutional services include curriculum design and LMS integration (delivered through Canvas at partner institutions), faculty and staff trainings, listening sessions, Flash Diagnostics assessments, and customized consulting engagements. The center also operates 205 Kent Hall as a physical community hub on the Columbia Morningside campus.

The business model is a hybrid philanthropic-and-fee structure. Core funding comes from philanthropy and donations supporting veteran transition programming, financial aid, and alumni programming. Services are delivered at no cost to nonprofit organizations and resource-constrained colleges and universities. Fee-for-service engagements (workshops, consulting, training, custom capacity-building interventions, and speaking engagements) are charged to for-profit and corporate partners based on scope of work; named enterprise clients include JPMorgan Chase (5,000+ military-connected employees trained) and Amazon Global Military Affairs (Mission Forward Veteran Summit). Higher-education consulting partners include Alamo Colleges District, Penn State, LaGuardia Community College, Ocean County College, Minnesota State Moorhead, and the University of Nebraska Medical Center. CVTI received the 2025 William Pearson Tolley Champion for Veterans in Higher Education Award from Student Veterans of America.

Name

Columbia University Center for Veteran Transition and Integration

Legal name

Center for Veteran Transition and Integration (Columbia University)

Website

https://veterans.columbia.edu

Company type

Private

Founded year

2017

Operating status

Operating

Short description

CVTI is a non-profit center at Columbia University that supports military veterans transitioning to civilian academic and professional life through free MOOCs, workshops, institutional consulting, and partnerships with universities, corporations, and veteran service organizations nationwide.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Veteran Education and Transition Services

NAICS

Professional and Management Development Training (611430), Educational Support Services (611710), Educational Services (61)

SIC

Services-Educational Services (8200)

akta.pro primary industry

Professional & Applied Skills Noncredit Certificates (Non-licensure) (EDAAAEAD)

akta.pro secondary industries

Veterans & Military-to-Civilian Transition Programs (EDAAAOAH), Training Delivery Services (Onsite/Virtual Instruction, Workshops, Coaching) (BPAEANAN)

Keywords

• Veteran education services
• Military-to-civilian transition
• Higher education consulting
• Career transition training
• Academic support programs

Headquarters

HQ city

New York

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Others

Revenue model

1. Philanthropy and Donations: The Center's mission depends on philanthropy to achieve its goals of building stronger cultures of support for veterans and transitioning service members across America. Donations support academic and career transition programming, financial aid for veteran students, and veteran student/alumni programming.
2. Fee-for-Service (Corporate Partners): CVTI offers services including workshops, seminars, trainings, program auditing/building, consulting, community listening sessions, speaking engagements, and custom capacity building interventions to for-profit and corporate partners for a fee determined in consultation and accordance with scope of work.
3. Free Services (Nonprofits/Education): Services provided at zero-cost for nonprofit organizations as well as resource-constrained college and university partners, including workshops, trainings, consulting, listening sessions, and speaking engagements. Virtual resources including online courses and video content are completely free and open source.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels11 records

Core offering

CVTI provides free online courses, video libraries, and educational resources supporting veterans' transition from military service to college and civilian careers. It also delivers fee-based workshops, training, curriculum design, learning management system (LMS) integration, and consultation services to colleges, universities, veteran service organizations, and corporate partners. Programs such as Operation Soft Skills and the Narrative Practice Initiative address academic adjustment, imposter phenomenon, career transition, and institutional capacity building.

Product overview

The Center for Veteran Transition and Integration (CVTI) is an educational support organization, not a technology product company. It offers a portfolio of free online courses (University Studies for Student Veterans, Find Your Calling, Attaining Higher Education, Become A Peer Sponsor, Keeping Graduate School on the Horizon), workshops (Operation Soft Skills, Veteran Narrative Workshops), and community programs (Narrative Practice Initiative, Narrative Medicine Workshop Series, Summer Seminar Series). These are delivered through a Resource Library containing articles, research, and video content. CVTI also provides consultation and advisory services to institutions, including curriculum design, LMS integration, and media production. The organization publishes two newsletters (The Exchange and Common Ground) and annual impact reports. All online courses are hosted on external platforms (edX, Columbia Plus) and are free to access. The organization does not offer a commercial software product.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Quantifiable outcome

• Soft skills training delivered to 5,000 military-connected JPMorgan Chase employees globally
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers10 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature5 records

Partnerships

17 partnerships are on record, tiered core, secondary and minor.

• Alamo College DistrictcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2020In 2020, CVTI worked with Alamo College District to integrate academic support curriculum into their Learning Management System, providing critical support to approximately 4,000 veterans and military-connected students with focus on 400 academically at-risk. Outcomes included 79% reporting increased GPAs.
• Student Veterans of America (SVA)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerMulti-phase collaboration including workshops at SVA NatCon, mainstage presentations, and a three-phase initiative to empower chapter advisors and strengthen regional ecosystems of support for student veterans across 1,600+ campuses.
• JPMorgan Chase & Co.coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCVTI presents soft skill training to 5,000 military-connected JPMorgan Chase employees globally as part of their Veteran Development Series, focusing on overcoming imposter phenomenon and professional development.
• Amazon Global Military AffairscoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartnership for second consecutive year delivering workshops at Amazon Mission Forward Veteran Summit at HQ2 in Arlington, Virginia. Series of impactful workshops on reframing impostor feelings and veteran success.
• FourBlocksecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerCVTI assisted FourBlock in transforming their successful veteran career readiness curriculum to an online format to expand reach to veterans nationwide.
• Warrior Scholar ProjectsecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerCVTI helped deploy an online pre-course delivered through the Canvas LMS system to prepare veterans for academic success before entering college.
• Veterans Affairs (VA)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartnership supporting VA Work-Study student program and veteran transition services. CVTI employs VA work-study students as VA Ambassadors and CVTI Service Liaisons.
• Minnesota State MoorheadsecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerCVTI participated in Minnesota State Moorhead's Veterans Resources and Services Fair. R.J. Jenkins delivered opening address on building campus culture that empowers veterans. Collaboration included multi-day programming.
• Penn StatesecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerCVTI assisted with development of Penn State's Veterans College Boot Camp, an intensive bridge program designed to help first-semester student veterans transition successfully from military service to the classroom.
• University of Nebraska Medical Center College of NursingsecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerCVTI collaborated to develop veteran-friendly approaches for the College of Nursing to promote faculty appreciation and support of unique needs of student veterans.
• Veteran Transition Research LabsecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartnership supporting and disseminating ground-breaking research that provides more nuanced and supportive view of challenges veterans face in transition.
• NYC Consortium for Veteran and Military-Connected Student SupportsecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerCVTI supports the NYC higher education community by helping lead a consortium of NYC schools and educational VSOs to coordinate veteran support services.
• LaGuardia Community CollegesecondaryStrategic or Co-development PartnerOngoing partnership providing recurring presentations, trainings, and listening sessions to support student veterans at this NYC community college.
• Ocean County CollegeminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCVTI hosted full day of professional development and roundtable listening sessions with Ocean County College in New Jersey.
• Next Step InboundminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCVTI helped produce Next Step Inbound's first in a series of University Campus tour videos supporting veteran transition.
• ETS Sponsorship ProgramminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerOnline training program to help certify candidates to provide support to service members as they transition to the civilian world.
• Columbia University School of General StudiescoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCVTI is housed within and supported by Columbia's School of General Studies, which has over 2,800 students enrolled and $100 million operating budget. GS has long been a leader in veteran student support.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Student Veterans of America (SVA): National nonprofit with 1,600+ campus chapters coordinating student veteran support, advocacy, and programming; CVTI partners with SVA directly and SVA's chapter network represents CVTI's most comparable mission-aligned peer for serving the student veteran population.
• FourBlock: Veteran career readiness nonprofit that co-developed CVTI's 'Find Your Calling' MOOC; delivers career transition programming to veterans and is a direct peer in the veteran career transition segment CVTI serves.
• Syracuse University Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF): University-based institute delivering veteran transition research, programs, and policy work; structurally similar to CVTI as a higher-ed-anchored center providing training, research, and consulting on veteran transition, though at significantly larger scale.
• Warrior Scholar Project: Nonprofit that partners with CVTI on Canvas LMS pre-courses; provides academic bridge programs to help veterans transition into college, making it a direct peer in the academic transition support niche.
• Service to School (S2S): Veteran education access nonprofit previously led by CVTI's Director Beth Morgan; focuses on helping veterans gain admission to top colleges, directly overlapping CVTI's higher education transition work.
• Hiring Our Heroes (U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation): Program connecting veterans, transitioning service members, and military spouses to meaningful employment; comparable to CVTI's career transition segment, particularly for the corporate veteran development programming CVTI delivers to JPMorgan Chase and Amazon.
• AmericaServes: Coordinator/coordinating hub model for veteran services across regional networks; structurally analogous to CVTI's hub-of-hubs approach of connecting veteran service organizations and educational institutions rather than delivering services directly.

Broad incumbents

• Wounded Warrior Project: Large national nonprofit serving post-9/11 wounded veterans with broad programming including transition, mental health, and employment; comparable as a veteran-serving organization but operates at vastly larger scale and across a broader mission than CVTI.

Emerging players

• TrajectoryMKE: Veteran-focused career transition and coaching provider serving individual transitioning service members and corporate clients; an emerging player in the career transition niche where CVTI's fee-for-service corporate engagements compete.
• Marine Corps Leadership Scholar Program: Veteran academic preparation program previously directed by CVTI's Beth Morgan; provides targeted academic and leadership development to Marine veterans entering higher education, directly overlapping CVTI's higher education transition work.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• YouTubeyoutube.com/channel/UCD7A1z2dBPZXI-1o7wq0ckg?sub_confirmation=1
• Facebookfacebook.com/ColumbiaCVTI
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/columbia-university-center-for-veteran-transition-and-integration/posts/?feedView=all
• Instagraminstagram.com/columbiacvti

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles9 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about Columbia University Center for Veteran Transition and Integration