Creating Career Paths for the Low-Skilled in High Poverty Areas

About this grant

This grant will allow Jobs for the Future and its partner, the National Council for Workforce Education, to identify, support, and convene a network of community colleges located in the Lower Rio Grande Valley that have an institutional commitment and capacity to move adults with low skills to college-level certificates and degrees. This initiative would build upon and connect to current networking practices and implementation strategies pioneered by Jobs for the Future in a previous Mott Foundation-funded program that enabled adult students to enter and succeed in community college occupational degree and credential programs. Over three years, the scope of work will include a funded demonstration project at one college in the Lower Rio Grande Valley; a robust peer learning network among a set of interested colleges located there; connection to the national community college learning network; and technical assistance, knowledge development, and network facilitation. This first-year grant is envisioned as a period to lay the groundwork for a full-scale launch of the high poverty area initiative beginning in the second year.