Person:

Fuller, Joseph

Pathways to economic opportunity are broken in the United States, disproportionately affecting Black, Latinx, and Indigenous individuals and those from low-income backgrounds. Disrupting long-standing occupational segregation and improving outcomes for all will require a system of career navigation that gives all individuals economic agency and opportunity.

Unlocking Economic Prosperity: Career Navigation in a Time of Rapid Change dissects the evidence and practice of career navigation and sets an agenda for a more equitable career navigation ecosystem. Based on an extensive literature review and consultation with experts and frontline workers, we identify the drivers of career navigation success and lay out core design principles and recommendations for the future.

At a time of rapid technological transformation, policymakers, employers, educators, intermediaries, and philanthropies must collaborate to build a system of supports and pathways that provide all individuals with the information, skills, social capital, resources, and social structures they need to advance.

In the wake of COVID-19 and growing inequality, America needs more pathways that bridge education and career. New research from the Project on Workforce at Harvard draws on data from New Profit's Postsecondary Initiative for Equity to identify opportunities for the education-to-employment field and chart the course for connections to good jobs.

The Options Multiplier: Decoding the CareerWise Youth Apprentice Journey, a new white paper from Harvard's Project on Workforce, uses a novel dataset from CareerWise Colorado, one of the U.S.'s most widely cited youth apprenticeship models. During the program, CareerWise students split their time between a traditional classroom and the workplace, allowing apprentices to earn a wage, while accessing meaningful work experience and debt-free college credits. Our research finds that nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of CareerWise apprentices achieve the program’s stated goal of serving as an “Options Multiplier”- they transition on to postsecondary education, employment, or both. Supportive supervisors, job match, industry type, and Registered Apprenticeship status all have a significant impact on retention and completion. Better understanding these factors means that employers can structure programs that lead to apprentice success, teaching students the skills they need for a good job and generating a high return on investment for employers.

In this playbook, we provide a framework to help college better deliver on the American Dream. We create a coherent, comprehensive taxonomy of the landscape of college-to-jobs programs and policies through a review of the existing academic research according to a set of common criteria. With a focus on public two-year and four-year colleges, Minority Serving Institutions and Historically Black Colleges and Universities, we identify 13 “interventions” within the college ecosystem that could be used to ease the transition into good jobs in the workforce.

In a labor market driven by rapid technological change, workers and learners face significant challenges in securing quality employment. This struggle is particularly pronounced for the nation’s 42 million low-wage earners, who have less access to accurate career information and fewer resources to devote to career exploration and upskilling. Those workers often become trapped in a cycle of low-wage employment with minimal prospects for advancement. There is an urgent need for a system of career navigation that will disrupt this cycle and help all workers advance.

As people experience more career transitions and longer work lives, career navigation becomes even more important. However, there is a dearth of research as to how individuals–particularly low-wage workers–navigate their careers. Data on how people acquire and use career information, leverage social capital, and deploy navigation skills remains limited.

To bridge this knowledge gap, we are conducting a multi-year, mixed-methods study of career navigation among low-wage workers. The initial phase of the research involved a nationally representative survey of this population, which yielded preliminary insights into how low-wage earners actually perceive and approach career navigation, discussed in this paper. The data also raise several new questions, which we intend to explore through qualitative research. We hope this study catalyzes employers, educators, and policymakers to adopt more effective and equitable career navigation policies and practices.

Across the country, community colleges serve as critical engines of workforce development—partnering with regional employers, creating career pathways, and expanding opportunities for historically marginalized students. But as the labor market evolves and emerging technologies like generative AI reshape industries, how can these institutions ensure their students are prepared to thrive in the workforce?

This volume explores how four diverse community colleges—Hudson County Community College (NJ), Community College of Aurora (CO), South Texas College (TX), and Riverland Community College (MN)—are using labor market information and student outcomes data, industry partnerships, and cutting-edge technology to help students access high-growth careers.

Researchers Simba Gandari, Courtnei Sanders, Arnold Lopez and Ram Hernandez collaborated with the community colleges to conduct rigorous qualitative research over a period of five months. Nearly 150 individuals across the four regions—including college leaders, faculty, staff, students, employers, policymakers, and other experts—participated in interviews or focus groups to inform this work. The result is four detailed case studies, each of which highlights promising data and technology practices and other successful initiatives at the institution.