Black entrepreneurs face persistent systemic barriers to starting, maintaining, and growing businesses. Education, training, and workforce development organizations can be a source of support. This Urban Institute brief investigates how organizations within this space support Black business owners and help remove structural barriers.

HireAbility Vermont, Vermont’s state agency meant to help those with disabilities prepare for, obtain, and maintain meaningful careers, designed Vermont Career Advancement Project (VCAP) to address barriers to employment and encourage enrollment in training programs for high-wage occupations. VCAP will train more people for career pathways by connecting participants with programs and educational opportunities that result in a credential, postsecondary degree, or higher-paid job. This Mathematica brief describes how VCAP connects people with disabilities with opportunities for career training.

In 2023, the Department of Labor (DOL) launched the Youth Employment Works strategy to set a clear vision for young people in the workforce system and its public and private sector partners. This work is urgent and necessary to promote high quality career pathways for young workers to ensure they are prepared and empowered to engage in a dynamic labor market full of opportunities. This DOL resource lays out a roadmap for how they are aligning their programs and funds to advance this vision. The resource highlights additional links that provide guidance outlining promising practices for partnership and service delivery through the youth workforce system as well as the national Call to Action on Youth Employment.

The five-year initiative New Skills for Youth (NSFY) aimed to transform career readiness education and bridge the skills gap by supporting innovative strategies in 10 states across the United States. This Advance CTE report shares the successes and challenges of sustaining the work beyond the conclusion of the NSFY initiative, and through a global pandemic, in six of the states: Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. From the experiences of each of these states, the resource presents specific recommendations and action steps for state and local leaders on how to sustain career pathways for long-term success.

Most good jobs—those that provide a living wage—require some form of career-connected postsecondary education and training. And by 2027, 70% of jobs will require education or training beyond high school. The Department of Education (ED) is committed to working with state and local leaders to ensure every student has an onramp to college and to good jobs by reimagining how the nation’s high schools prepare all students to succeed and by providing students with accelerated and innovative opportunities to earn college credits and gain real-world professional experiences. 

This webpage, developed by Youth.gov and ED, describes ED’s strategies for ensuring every student has an onramp to college and to good jobs that provide a living wage. The webpage highlights programs and initiatives that focus on:

• Career success
• Dual enrollment
• Work-based learning
• Workforce credentials
• Career advising and navigation

The rise of higher education costs, greater visibility of successful individuals who have not completed degrees, advances in diverse education models like apprenticeships, and the growth of entrepreneurship have shown that earning a degree is not the only pathway. Despite these trends, there is still a persistent emphasis on funneling students toward traditional degree programs. This Jobs for the Future resource advocates for destigmatizing diverse education and training options, fostering educator-employer collaboration to create multiple skill-building avenues, and empowering individuals’ unique pathways to success.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Assistance hosted the Regions V-VIII State Technical Assistance Meeting from July 9 to July 11, 2024 in Denver, Colorado. Themed “Reimagining Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Programs through the Lens of Program Participants,” this meeting was designed to inspire, support, and engage TANF program leaders and staff in evidence-driven change that improves programs and positively impacts the lives of the families they serve. Over the course of the meeting, participants engaged in peer-to-peer learning, group discussion and idea generation, and networking among Federal and state colleagues.

This Center for American Progress issue brief highlights resources that states can access to work toward closing the digital divide and promotes proactively addressing technological advancements to strengthen educational technology, ultimately increasing college and career readiness.

Nearly one in five undergraduate students in the United States is caring for dependent children. Supporting student parents through higher education is crucial for promoting economic mobility. Child Trends administered the New Mexico College Student Experience Survey to more than 3,000 students, including more than 1,000 pregnant or parenting students with children under age 18, across nine higher education institutions in New Mexico during the 2024 spring semester. This report presents the results of the survey, providing an illustration of student parents in New Mexico and pointing to practice reforms that may better support this group of students.