Read time
Our current education and training system is already lagging and failing too many unemployed and underemployed Americans. We need better solutions for our most vulnerable citizens. Building a learning ecosystem that connect 44 million working-class Americans to good jobs and careers is the fundamental challenge our country faces as we prepare for the future of work.
In this report, Strada Institute for the Future of Work and Entangled Solutions examine the opportunities to scale innovative on-ramps.
Together, we can:
Scale strategies and programs that work. Philanthropists, funders, and social entrepreneurs can invest in these models, build better business cases, or develop innovative approaches that address the barriers to scale that on-ramps face. With an ecosystem approach, more partners can help on-ramps more clearly demonstrate their value and efficacy, so that others can accelerate their learning and develop even more on-ramps. There is also a need to showcase more employers that view on-ramps as goodwill matched with better business practices.
Build an infrastructure for growth. On-ramps are proven models that other groups can leverage. Workforce investment boards and learning providers, such as community and technical colleges, which serve large populations of adult learners, can partner with on-ramps to deliver learning content or augment training, wraparound, or placement services. Or more directly, they can develop their own on-ramp programs.
Demystify and incentivize. Policymakers and funders can change the narrative about hiring nontraditional talent pools by incentivizing more employers to partner with innovative, nontraditional programs and attract more entrepreneurs to design new models to target the adults who are at serious risk of being left behind.
Strada Institute advances our understanding of the changing nature of work, so that we can design and create the learning ecosystem of the future.
We work across boundaries to harvest insights and unlock the potential of the people and organizations poised to accelerate innovation and foster equity in education.
Insights from National Experts
Our mission is to improve lives by forging clearer and more purposeful pathways between education and employment.
How Intermediaries Can Connect Education and Work in a Postpandemic World
A “How To” Playbook for America’s Governors
Using regional skill shapes to build a better learning ecosystem
Building an education-to-employment system centered on adult learners
Innovative Strategies to Support Today’s Online College Students
Fueling Innovation for the Learning Ecosystem of the Future
Human+ Skills for the Future of Work
We’re getting mixed messages about the outcomes of liberal arts graduates. Depending on who you ask, these graduates are either headed for a lifetime as a barista or are capable of doing absolutely anything. The answer lies somewhere in the middle.
An Early History of Strada Education Network 2014-17
Underemployment's Long-Term Effects on the Careers of College Grads