The Communiversity is an adult education intervention targeting people experiencing ‘exclusion’ not only from a socio-economic stand point but also in terms of age, mental health, addiction recovery, disability and other forms of marginalisation. It is a three-way partnership between Maynooth University (MU), community based organisations in the form of Local Development Companies and the Public Library Service. This article will emphasise the importance of higher education partnership arrangements with like-minded organisations who can deliver value for money within the public sector by pooling resources and sharing services to promote the aim of community engaged lifelong learning. It will also consider threats to the initiative in terms of insecure funding and ‘special’ status outside the mainstream of skills acquisition and job readiness that lifelong learning education budgets are weighted towards.