Working To Learn

Research released from Harvard's Project on Workforce drew on data from a New Profit initiative to bridge education-to-employment

 

In the wake of COVID-19 and growing inequality, America needs more pathways that bridge education and career. New research released in April 2021 from Harvard University’s Project on Workforce draws on data from New Profit’s Postsecondary Innovation for Equity (PIE) initiative to identify opportunities for the education-to-employment field and chart the course for connections to good jobs.

The white paper, Working to Learn: Despite a growing set of innovators, America struggles to connect education and career,” utilized a unique dataset consisting of 316 organizations that applied to our PIE initiativean open application process to find, select, and fund innovators creating access to postsecondary and career opportunities for young people from historically underserved communities. Analyzing the applicant data, the report’s authors found:

  • Huge potential to engage employers more deeply: Programs that worked with employers were growing faster than peers, but only about one-third (35%) of organizations mentioned that they were working directly with employers. Only about one-quarter mentioned providing learning opportunities in workplace environments. 
  • Opportunities to build bridges between education and employment: Only 16% of organizations prioritize relationships with both educational institutions and employers. Success measurement is similarly siloed between education and employment metrics; for organizations that focused on college-related outcomes, only 33% also prioritized employment outcomes. 
  • A growing need to develop transferable skills in the future of work: One-third of organizations in the dataset focused on job-specific training, but just 9% of organizations prioritized foundational soft skills alongside job-specific skills.
  • A critical opportunity for more investment in wraparound supports: Only 13% of organizations cited directly providing wraparound supports like subsidies for transportation, housing, or childcare.
  • A growing, but still nascent, evidence base: The most common success metric tracked by applicant organizations (59%) was whether participants completed the program. About one-quarter of organizations indicated that they measured employment rates and a similar share tracked college attendance. Causal evidence is scarcer; 9% of applicants cited an existing study, quasi-study, or external evaluation of the program model in their application. 
  • Under-leveraging of technology in some areas: Before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the field was heavily skewed towards in-person models. Only 6% of programs were fully online; 11% had hybrid models.