Gerald Chertavian believes every young adult has potential and deserves a clear pathway to a great career, whether through college or directly into the workforce. And as founder and CEO of Year Up, he’s proving that with the appropriate training and employer support, it can take as little as one year for “opportunity youth” — 16- to 24-year-olds who are neither working nor in school — to move from poverty to a well-paid, in-demand career, often with a Fortune 500 company.
There’s no shortage of big, ambitious ideas for creating an education-workforce system that improves upward mobility for more people. Harvard education economist David Deming uses hard data to stress test those ideas and see what might work, and what probably won’t. We talk to him about what he’s learning and what he recommends we do right now to improve the value of education for an increasingly diverse workforce.
‘Lessons Earned’ Podcast Talks With JFF’s Michael Collins
Long before JFF’s Michael Collins became an education-workforce policy expert, he was a Black kid living in Hartford, Connecticut, bussed to school in the white suburbs. The experience, followed years later by a stint teaching low-income Latino students in Texas, drove home the racial and economic disparities he’s been working to solve ever since. In the midst of a pandemic disrupting education and work — especially for low-income people of color — we talk to Michael about how to equip people for jobs today without closing off opportunities to advance in jobs of the future.
Workers can’t rely on promises alone to advance. They need clearer paths from training to career opportunities.
Earning a degree should help you advance in the work you love — not get in the way of it. Learner-centered programs fit learning into the rest of life.
Life’s curveballs can make our plans go awry. Better options can help us finish what we started.
Committing to education, alongside all of life’s other commitments, takes coordination, determination, and dedication. Financial support and a flexible work schedule can make it all come together.
All the planning in the world can’t guarantee success. Learners need opportunity and support to put their plans into action.
What if, instead of adding work on top of education, the work you did advanced your education? Integrated earning and learning makes the most of learners’ time and talent.
It’s college application season, and anxious students and parents throughout the country are strategizing on how to get into the elite colleges of their choice. Journalist and author Jeff Selingo just spent a year inside college admissions offices at three higher education institutions to write his latest book, “Who Gets In and Why.”
After spending a year inside admissions offices, journalist and author Jeff Selingo reminds parents and students that admission into college is not just about grades and hard work, and it never was. We talk to Selingo about his latest book, “Who Gets In and Why,” to explore how colleges can improve admissions and increase opportunities for disadvantaged students and how students can maximize their college experience — wherever they go to school.