The Upward Mobility Project

Problem: Existing higher education and workforce systems do not yet meet the needs of young adults from under-resourced communities while employers seek skilled, diverse talent to fill in-demand jobs.

Solution: Propel America and National Louis University are creating a new way for young adults across the country to affordably access an upwardly-mobile job. 

Positive Change if Scaled: Together, we are building affordable academic/ training pathways, delivered online alongside individualized coaching and in-person externships that prepare opportunity youth to: (1) attain an industry-recognized certificate quickly (3-6 months), (2) get a job with a partner employer who is invested in their success, and (3) earn college credit that stack together with additional credentials or a degree. These new pathways will be co-designed with employers and tied to actual jobs; made affordable by leveraging public funds, including Pell grants; and feature high-quality wraparound support to ensure long-term success.

Specific Problem: For decades, a high school degree could be a ticket to the middle class.  Employers today require post-secondary training to secure a living-wage job. However, our higher education and workforce systems are falling short of our country’s needs, particularly for low-income students of color. Due to rising costs and insufficient support, millions of students have dropped out of traditional colleges with significant debt -- there is $1.7 trillion in student debt nationally, and there are 36 million Americans with student loans but without a degree. Moreover, traditional workforce systems focus on job training with limited opportunities for advancement. Neither system connects meaningfully with employers, who often see graduates lacking in applied and professional skills.  

Scale of problem: Longitudinal college enrollment data show that only one-third of Americans will graduate with a college degree within eight years. In all, there are at least 4.4 million opportunity youth (16-24 years) who are neither enrolled in school nor working. They deserve better.  

Contributing Factors: Access, however, is only part of the challenge. Technology and automation require workers to learn continuously. Employers have an essential role to play, too, especially in dismantling barriers that often exclude high-potential, well-prepared talent of color.

Solution: We are building affordable training experiences that culminate in a credential leading to meaningful employment. Each learning pathway seamlessly connects education and employment; learners (we call them “fellows”) will get a living-wage job within six months and earn college credit for the future. In 2021, we will launch with a registered medical assistant credential pathway serving 150+ learners across five states. This is a first-of-its-kind partnership between an accredited institution and a non-profit that focuses on wraparound support and job placement. It will leverage NLU’s experience building high-quality online instruction and Propel’s support model which has helped learners succeed in similar credentialing programs.

Processes and Technology: All fellows initially complete Propel’s “Core” course before enrollment, which allows them to select a pathway of interest and prepares them with job-readiness skills. They then enroll in NLU’s online, credit-bearing coursework and receive technical and job-readiness skills through an integrated platform. Fellows receive support from a trained Propel coach, meet regularly with a cohort, and complete an externship with an employer partner. When they complete their credential, they interview with an employer partner, begin their career, and decide over time how they want to continue their education and career pathway.

Solution: We are building affordable training experiences that culminate in a credential leading to meaningful employment. Each learning pathway seamlessly connects education and employment; learners (we call them “fellows”) will get a living-wage job within six months and earn college credit for the future. In 2021, we will launch with a registered medical assistant credential pathway serving 150+ learners across five states. This is a first-of-its-kind partnership between an accredited institution and a non-profit that focuses on wraparound support and job placement. It will leverage NLU’s experience building high-quality online instruction and Propel’s support model which has helped learners succeed in similar credentialing programs.

Processes and Technology: All fellows initially complete Propel’s “Core” course before enrollment, which allows them to select a pathway of interest and prepares them with job-readiness skills. They then enroll in NLU’s online, credit-bearing coursework and receive technical and job-readiness skills through an integrated platform. Fellows receive support from a trained Propel coach, meet regularly with a cohort, and complete an externship with an employer partner. When they complete their credential, they interview with an employer partner, begin their career, and decide over time how they want to continue their education and career pathway.

Hundreds of thousands of high school graduates from low-income backgrounds struggle to transition into postsecondary learning and/or well-paid work. Our solution will leverage public funding (including Pell) to create affordable learning and skill-building opportunities designed specifically for these young people. We work closely with employer partners to build and deliver credentials aligned to in-demand jobs. As a result, young adults - both those entering the workforce and those who have graduated from HS but not found sustainable employment - will not only build skills, but also find a path to upwardly-mobile jobs after completing their credentials. 

Full-time: 2

Part-time (working on this and other projects within each organization): 17

Contractors: 2

Propel and NLU are committed to building just organizations that support diversity, equity and inclusion. Propel was born out of the urgent need to respond to inequities faced by people of color from low-income backgrounds. We work to disrupt structures of bias and racism and ensure all young adults can attain economic prosperity. We are acting to ensure our curriculum is culturally responsive and to increase the diversity of our board and staff to better reflect our learners. NLU is a Hispanic and Minority Serving Institution committed to achieving a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment where every individual is heard, respected, valued, and welcomed. Every day, we strive to create a community where everyone is empowered to live their full authentic selves. Our partnership is the latest expression of our shared work to create a diverse team and engage employers and learners toward a more inclusive and just world.

Our solution is a unique credential-first blended college experience that gives learners a clear pathway to upward mobility. It’s innovative in three key ways:

Partnership: We are combining the forces of (1) an accredited university with a strong track record of serving learners from low-income backgrounds online, (2) a non-profit that has built wraparound supports and partnerships in communities, and (3) employers eager to support their next generation of employees. This combination of complementary expertise and partnership, which will leverage scalable technology, is unusual and a critical ingredient for success.

Speed: Our goal is for learners to be able to acquire the credentials, skills, experiences, and networks necessary for a job within 3 to 6 months.

Affordability combined with college credit: Learners will earn transferable college credit and are eligible to receive Pell grants to cover the cost of tuition, which will ensure program sustainability.  They’ll also receive a modest stipend to offset out-of-pocket costs. 

Relative to the higher education or workforce status quo, we will: (1) have strong relationships with employers who will offer our successful learners actual jobs and on-the-job transitional support at the end of the program; (2) provide wraparound coaching that is essential for enabling persistence; and (3) give learners a path to a living wage without taking out significant debt.

Our solution relies on an integrated platform including:

1. Learner-centric online learning: A learning management system at NLU that allows students to progress asynchronously and engage in classes via video conference; over the next year and a half, we expect to build an adaptive learning program that provides additional customization, creating unique learning experiences (including the potential for virtual clinics and opportunities for practice) for students based on the competencies they master as they make progress.

2. Real-time integrated data on student progress: Instructors and coaches will be able to access data on student progress and collaborate to support learners; coaches will be automatically notified of learners who are falling behind. Instructors, in close partnership with coaches, will be able to tailor support and instruction to the areas where learners need to grow to gain mastery.

3. Alumni resources: Alumni will continue to have access to the career planning tools they build during our program, will build a tech-enabled portfolio for prospective employers, and will access continued support from coaches via our online platform. 

4. Employer-facing portal: In the medium-term, we plan to build a portal that will allow employers to give feedback and share information.

Technology will be a key part of scaling our program and providing learners and employers with the information and tools they need to succeed.

In 2018, NLU launched an innovative blended program called Undergraduate Pathways, a project-based, undergraduate degree experience aligned to specific career paths (i.e. business, criminal justice, healthcare etc.). While Pathways differs from the proposed project in a number of ways, we expect to leverage many of the same technologies to create dynamic, differentiated, data-driven experiences for learners. Pathways uses an adaptive learning platform (Acrobatiq) to support and customize each student’s experience, allowing them to move through the program as they master content. It also uses a predictive analytics/student retention system (EAB) to track individual student progress (and flag issues for their faculty/coaches) as well as analyze “big data” to evaluate program-wide trends in retention and persistence. NLU uses Salesforce as a CRM and has built out a suite of reports and tools used to engage a variety of stakeholders. We expect to incorporate many, if not all, of these NLU resources in our work. 

Together, with Propel’s emerging technological footprint (including the adoption of a new Propel LMS and CRM in 2021-2022), we anticipate using technology in nearly every aspect of our program to create exceptional learning opportunities for each participant.

Our theory of change is that if young people are able to quickly earn an affordable credential that leads to a good first job, they will build career momentum, gain critical experience, reduce the time to additional degrees/credentials, and be on their way to upward mobility. By partnering with employers to redesign the traditional pathways of the higher education and workforce systems, and creating a learning experience especially for young people eager to work, we will create conditions for systemic change in the way young people start their careers and achieve economic prosperity. 

Our logic model is:

Resources: 

• Public funding (Pell grants, state grants) and low-interest loans
• Employer partnerships and commitment
• Instructors with deep field experience and knowledge
• Philanthropy
• Adaptive, tech-enabled instructional model
• Coaches and relevant wraparound supports

Activities:

• Recruitment of learners (18-24) who want a rapid, affordable route to a good job

• Adaptive learning, tailored to meet learners’ needs 

• Practical training focused on skills and mindsets needed in particular fields

• Wraparound and job readiness supports delivered via a cohort model

• Bridges to employers who have jobs available for students and who support on-the-job-training

Output:

• A sustainable first credential and job for hundreds, eventually thousands, of young people

Impact (short term):

• Immediate upward economic mobility relative to non-participating peers

• Clear pathways to continued education and advancement in employment

• Transformation of employer practices to create better pathways for a diverse talent pool

Impact (long term):

• Higher income and greater economic prosperity 

• Obtainment of additional educational credentials without significant debt

• Career advancement and increased social capital

Propel’s face-to-face pilots have shown model validity: ~90% of those who where placed with employer partners in the 2019 New Jersey cohort persisted in their job for a year and are earning an average annual salary of more than $30K a year. Alumni to date have given the program a net promoter score (NPS) of 100.  As we grow and scale our partnership, we’ll continue to collect regular feedback from learners, staff and employer partners and anticipate working with a third-party to conduct an RCT as we establish the programmatic model. 

In 2021, we plan to enroll ~150 learners in a medical assistant program; our specific outcomes goals for this year include:

• 80% of learners successfully complete training, earn certification, and are eligible for hiring 

• 80% of learners complete their first credential without debt

• 75% of learners who complete training earn a job within six months of program completion

By 2025, we aim to directly support over 4,000 fellows across five states, jumpstarting the careers of thousands. We plan to add new pathways/credentials and build an associate program connecting program credentials. Our goal is to build a new post-secondary model, and we hope to share our learnings and approach with other higher education institutions, non-profit operators, policy-makers, workforce investment boards, and employer partners who are also focused on better supporting learners in their transition from school to work. We believe this model will be adopted by others and will ultimately reach tens of thousands of young people.

This partnership will have a transformational impact on participants. But this initiative is also about systemic change evolving the way: (1) employers build and support new talent pools, (2) K-12 systems approach post-HS graduation planning, and (3) higher education systems design programs to affix credits/credentials to meaningful, upwardly-mobile job outcomes. Historically, all three of these entities operate in silos. This project seeks to dissolve those barriers and build a new path for young people towards economic freedom.

We’re keeping our eye on three potential barriers:

Market: A key part of our model is partnering with employers to invest in young people and build career pathways for them. We work very closely with these employers - analyzing core competencies, co-designing curricula, aligning hiring timelines, and hiring nascent talent with a commitment to providing ongoing support and development. This is all new work for many employers. Shifting the market in this direction will be challenging, and though we have traction with early employer partners, we will evolve this work as we scale.

Financial: Our financial model suggests that we have a path to sustainability via public revenue and tuition dollars at scale. We’ll continue to raise philanthropic “launch” capital to get the program up and running.

Technical: To achieve our goal of scale, we need to ensure that humans (our instructors and coaches) are doing the work of supporting our students to overcome barriers and navigate challenges. This requires building a technical infrastructure that will give coaches the data they need to support students effectively, and students the automated, asynchronous support and additional resources they need (e.g. simulations to show them how to take blood pressure) to navigate the learning experience and any obstacles that may arise.

Market: As we build a track record of success in each region, we’ll be able to scale our work to additional employer partners. We’re ramping up our teams at both Propel and NLU to engage local and national partners. In addition, we will build employer advisory boards in our regions to streamline and strengthen our relationships with industry partners. Working with a workforce board through this grant’s workforce board validation pilot will boost our ability to leverage existing institutions, workforce providers, and employers to expand the market. 

Financial: We are piloting our operating and financial model, increasing the number of learners (~150) and cohorts we serve. We’re engaging a number of regional and national philanthropic funders to get their feedback and partner with them to expand our work. While we expect to collect Pell revenue this year for the inaugural cohorts of learners, we plan to pursue other revenue streams including WOIA/DOL funding, employer contributions, and new tuition financing options. 

Technical: NLU has existing expertise in designing responsive blended programs; Propel is adding additional technology talent and capacity to support program start-up.  Together, we are designing our pilot and curriculum to be iterative, rolling out new technical or programmatic solutions in short-cycles as we learn. 

The most important outcome in our model is the percentage of learners hired for a living wage job upon program completion. We expect 80% of learners to complete the program and 75% of program completers to get a job within 6 months. We’ll publicize our progress against this metric and we will collect this outcomes data via both alumni and employer surveys and through ongoing partnership with employer hiring managers. 

In the future, we’d like to be able to collect beyond self-reported data, including:

• Longitudinal wage and outcomes data for program completers compared to peer groups (e.g. via a randomized control trial)

• Descriptive/in-depth interviews with alumni and employers to understand the longer term impact of the program at the individual level years out from the start of the program

Our solution team is a joint effort between Propel America, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, and National Louis University, a private, non-profit university.

Our teams bring deep experience in K-12 and higher education that will uniquely position us to build these pathways.

Propel was founded by Paymon Rouhanifard (CEO; former Superintendent in Camden, NJ) and John White (Board Chair; former State Superintendent in Louisiana), who, after leading major K-12 education systems, realized that their high school graduates were being left with a false choice. They were either forestalling income and accruing debt toward a traditional degree that many would not complete, or forestalling education to work in low-wage, low-mobility jobs.

Paymon and John have built a strong, diverse team with experience in program, policy, operations and technology. Their experience and track record in leading education systems change uniquely position them to both understand the needs of the learners we serve and to build an effective solution.

Dr. Nivine Megahed (President of National Louis University) is a national leader in higher education. With over 25 years of experience as a faculty member, dean and college president, Dr. Megahed has a passion for and knows what it takes to build student-centered organizations focused on student success, and empowering our most underserved to achieve social and economic mobility through education. She has deep experience building entrepreneurial teams to launch new higher education initiatives, and she believes National Louis University is an ideal ecosystem to create new pathways for students that bridge the gap between school and work.

The Propel/NLU partnership includes a number of other important organization partners. Across its regions, Propel currently works with six healthcare employer partners and hospital systems where it has placed certified medical and nursing assistants in the past and where it expects to place an additional ~150 learners as CMAs this year. These employer partners provide on-the-job training to learners via externships and are in tight feedback loops to improve the curriculum and offer job interviews to all completers of the program. Propel has also partnered with American Training Center, a job training center based in New Jersey, to pilot programs this fall. NLU works with a wide spectrum of partners, including public school systems (i.e. Chicago Public Schools, Noble Charter Schools) as one of their post-secondary institution of choice, college completion programs (i.e. One Goal) to support NLU students as they enroll in and graduate from college, and a variety of community based organizations (i.e. El Valor, YMCA/YWCA) to provide NLU learners and faculty with various supports and resources. NLU has over a century of experience building meaningful local and regional partnerships and will build on and expand those resources and capabilities in this program.

The Upward Mobility Project has two key customers: employers and learners.  Propel/NLU work closely with employer partners to build rapid training experiences that prepare talented, diverse young people for in-demand jobs. We partner with employers from the beginning to ensure they are satisfied with program alignment, recruitment and selection models, and job placement strategies. And because employers are focused on their core business responsibilities, our team can add immediate value (and ultimately save employers money) by preparing new talent in the specific technical, professional, and cultural skills employers want.

Our learners are, of course, our primary customers. We create learning experiences specifically designed for their needs and work with employer partners to ensure each employer has policies and practices designed to invest in the learner’s long-term development. Each program completer will earn an industry-recognized credential, transferable college credit, professional/personal coaching, work experience (during an externship), a cohort/community of peers in their industry, and a bridge to employers and a sustainable first job. All of these resources are delivered within 3-6 months as part of the program and, depending on the learner’s financial situation, can be covered entirely by Pell funding.  Learners may need to pay a small amount of money out of pocket and can access NLU financial aid to do so. For learners, the combination of rapid access to work, meaningful support, and an exceptional “user experience” from program start to first day on the new job is unique and valuable.

Tuition, leveraging federal funding: Our solution will be Pell-eligible and largely serve learners that meet Pell eligibility requirements. While most of our tuition funding will come from Pell and other public grant programs, we are also exploring other tuition financing options to ensure learners do not have significant financial or debt burdens when leaving the program.

Philanthropy: We will raise philanthropic funds for seed and startup funding for this program to support us in getting to scale.

Employer support: In the medium term, as we prove our value proposition to employers, we will work with them to ensure the sustainability of our program.

To date, we have raised seed philanthropic capital to fund our program and anticipate we will receive around $.5M in tuition revenue this upcoming year.

We are seeking to raise $6M in philanthropic funding jointly over the several years to fund the creation and scaling of this program nationwide.

We anticipate our joint costs for this solution will be $2.2M in 2021.

Why: We are applying to this challenge because we believe our solution is a new approach - a “reimagined pathway” - to upward mobility for young adults in this country, and we believe the combination of institution of higher education, non-profit provider, and aligned employers is both unique in this partnership and essential for success.

Barriers/Partnerships: This grant will help us achieve greater, more integrated partnerships with employers, including through the workforce board validation pilots. Propel currently works in Western Massachusetts and has plans to scale across the state. We are excited about the chance to understand more deeply how innovative workforce boards can be an asset in scaling and strengthening our solution. We also believe we can benefit from IBM’s technical expertise and the Morgridge Family Foundation and New Profit’s experience in scaling transformative solutions.

We are looking for three kinds of partners and partnership. (1) We are always seeking aligned, invested employer partners who want to build diverse talent pipelines collaboratively, especially when it comes to young people. (2) We have a vision for how technology can continue to support our work, especially with respect to COVID-19. But, we also understand that new technologies are emerging every day that could improve our students’ learning experiences, improve the transition from training to employment, and increase the scalability of our coaching and support models. We love creative technologists and would love to partner with more of them. (3) We’re looking to build an advisory board of workforce leaders, policy-makers, entrepreneurs, and other subject matter experts who can help support our program expansion. We have ambitious plans, but we’re only just beginning, so we’re excited to learn from others who can help guide our work in the future.