MDRC released a policy brief that discusses the issue of low-income, college-ready students "undermatching" – enrolling in colleges for which they are academically overqualified or not going to college at all. Early results from the College Match Program in three Chicago high schools suggest that it's possible to help students navigate the college application process and make more informed decisions.

Young adults formerly in foster care are less likely to be employed or enrolled in college at age 19 than their same-age peers nationally, contributing to greater economic instability in their early adult years. Social workers, educators, and policymakers question whether youth are adequately prepared for work but have difficulty assessing their job preparedness. This brief, prepared by the Urban Institute, uses data collected as part of the Multi-Site Evaluation of Foster Youth Programs to examine: 1) how youth in foster care rate their preparedness for work at age 17, and 2) whether their assessments accurately predict education and employment two years later. The results indicated that a high sense of job preparedness, particularly when combined with high reading skills, was associated with more employment and college enrollment among young adults currently and formerly in foster care. (author abstract)

ConnectEd released a video about the Exploring College and Career Options (ECCO) curriculum, developed by MDRC and Bloom Associates, which includes lessons and activities that help students prepare for college and careers that expose them to real-world experiences on college campuses and in the workplace.

The College, Career & Technology Academy Toolkit developed by Jobs for the Future, provides detailed instructions, tools, and other resources for practitioners seeking to prepare off-track, out-of-school youth for postsecondary success.

This report provides a synthesis of research and existing ACF resources for serving at-risk youth. It describes what we know from research about at-risk youth. It then describes how at-risk youth are currently being served by ACF programs and by programs outside of ACF that have been shown to put youth on a path toward self-sufficiency. Based on the review of research and resources, it identifies issues to consider in creating conceptual frameworks for developing and enhancing ACF programs that can or do serve at-risk youth. In the remainder of this chapter, we state the key questions that guide the synthesis, define some key concepts, and describe a number of at-risk youth populations served by ACF programs. (author abstract)

As part of the Aspen Institute's Workforce Strategies Initiative (AspenWSI) funded by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, this report provides an overview of programs developed as part of the Courses to Employment (C2E) demonstration. The three-year demonstration was designed to help build programs through partnerships between community colleges and nonprofits and learn how these partnerships support low-income adults in post-secondary education and beyond in employment opportunities.

Increasing education among low-income parents is a vital component of policies to improve families’ economic status. Educational attainment matters: between 1979 and 2005, wages for those with college and advanced degrees rose by 22 and 28 percent, respectively, while wages for high school graduates remained stagnant and wages for high school dropouts fell by 16 percent. Overall, people who complete an associate’s degree or certificate program earn more than those with just a high school diploma or general educational development (GED) certificate, and those who complete even one year of college earn more than those without the additional education. But only a third of low-wage, low-income workers with children have more than a high school diploma and another third are high school dropouts. Moreover, the strong association between postsecondary education and higher earnings does not necessarily mean that facilitating access to higher education among low-income adults will lead to earnings gains, particularly considering that many lack recent or successful school experiences. (author abstract)

This Institute of Education Sciences (IES) issue brief compares demographic characteristics, 10th grade achievement levels, and plans for postsecondary education between GED recipients, high school graduates, and high school dropouts without a GED. The IES also reveals GED recipients’ reported reasons for leaving high school and their motivation to obtain a GED.

In 2004, the Lumina Foundation for Education launched “Achieving the Dream: Community Colleges Count,” a national initiative aimed at improving success among community college students, especially low-income students and students of color. From the Annie E. Casey Foundation, this report examines the outcomes at the first 26 colleges that have joined the initiative, although there are currently 130 institutes in 24 States who are a part of the initiative. The report describes how the initiative has influenced the colleges and provides an overview of the strategies that have been implemented across the country.

Over 26 million adults in the United States do not have a high school degree and many of these individuals are classified as low-skilled. Many Adult Basic Education (ABE) programs, designed to provide foundational skills, are failing to place low-skilled students on a trajectory to enter credit-bearing postsecondary programs and earn postsecondary credentials. Accelerating Opportunity: A Breaking through Initiative, seeks to transform ABE programs in the United States to help low-skilled students move along educational pathways and into jobs that pay a living wage. Modeling their efforts after the Washington State Integrated Basic Education and Skills Training (I-BEST) program, 11 States throughout the U.S. are attempting to substantially increase the number of basic skills students enrolled in career pathway programs that lead to high-quality employment opportunities.