Strada collaborates with students, policymakers, educators, and employers across the U.S. to strengthen the link between education and opportunity.
Learn More
We prioritize policies, practices, and programs that help ensure postsecondary education provides equitable pathways to opportunity.
We advance our mission through research, grantmaking, social impact investments, public policy solutions, Strada-supported nonprofit organizations, and strategic initiatives.
Read time
To create a PDF of the webpage, choose in opened window ‘Save as PDF’ option in ‘Destination’ select or something like that and click to save or print button.
$51.8M in philanthropic grants managed through 61 strategic partnerships that were active from 2018 to 2020, supporting nonprofit and state efforts to promote student success and drive important changes in education and training programs.
350,000+ individuals surveyed to create the nation’s largest dataset of education consumer perspectives, which will be made available to researchers as part of the newly established Strada Center for Consumer Insights.
$7.4M provided to states through the National Governors Association and Education Commission of the States, and direct investments in Indiana and Rhode Island.
80+ hours of interviews with adult learners, which informed the development of a learner-centric future education- to-work model that provides more flexibility, support, and integration between work and learning.
Strada’s mission is to improve lives by forging clearer and more purposeful pathways between education and employment. While many Americans benefit from college degrees and advanced training every year, there are others — particularly people of color and those in low-income communities — who do not.
Working on behalf of those left behind, we strive to make the system more equitable so that it can better serve all learners.
To change the education-to-workforce system, Strada is focused on building pathways for the segments of America’s population that the higher education system systematically underserves. We see these systemic failures not only as a serious threat to opportunity, but also as a chance to deploy our distinctive network to make good on education’s promise of social and economic mobility.
44 million working-age adults who face the greatest income and educational inequities.
10 million college students who face systemic barriers to achieving their educational goals.
6 million opportunity youth who are not currently in school, training, or working.
We envision a future education-workforce system that puts the needs of the education consumer at the center — a future in which all Americans are equipped to learn and earn throughout their lives. In this future, learners will have a clear view of the skills and credentials they will need — and access to multiple pathways to obtain them — so they can launch and sustain fulfilling careers, support their families and communities, and grow our economy.
As a social impact organization, Strada Education Network leverages the power of its entire network to approach challenges from multiple angles. We are not only a research institute, or an advocate for policy innovation, or a philanthropy, or a service provider. We engage in all of these areas in a coordinated effort to drive lasting change.
LEARN
We develop actionable insights into education and work through research and experience, and we share those insights with education and workforce leaders.
CONNECT
We mobilize change-makers by convening and collaborating. Together, we develop ideas we can turn into action.
BUILD
We work to accelerate change by building a more equitable education-workforce system that enables social mobility and allows individuals from all backgrounds to succeed.
We evaluate our success by measuring outcomes against relevant state and national benchmarks in three specific areas centered on learners’ educational experiences. We place particular focus on members of our priority populations as we work to increase equity in education and workforce outcomes.
COMPLETION
We advance the completion of degrees and credentials for more Americans.
VALUE
We believe degrees and credentials must have financial and career value for those who earn them, as measured by their usefulness in helping people obtain jobs, improve earnings, and advance in their careers throughout their lives.
PURPOSE
We want postsecondary education to provide purpose to learners and connect them to fulfilling careers, which means they should be satisfied with the relevance of their education to meeting their career and personal goals in the near term and into the future.
The State Opportunity Index was developed to help states build a stronger connection between education after high school and equitable pathways to opportunity so students realize the full value of their education and employers have the workforce they need to fill high-demand jobs.
New research highlights what states and institutions can do to help more graduates secure college-level jobs.
To better understand the value community colleges provide to individuals and communities, we need to acknowledge the range of needs they serve.
A wide range of experiences prepare students for success beyond the completion of their college degree. The evidence for the value of interning on students' future careers is strong.
In an era of student enrollment declines, tight labor markets, rising college costs, and a growing lack of confidence in the value of a postsecondary education, community colleges and employers have ample reasons to partner together.
Partnerships between community colleges and employers have the opportunity to address local and regional economic needs through a range of tools, including supporting student success through resources and services, integrating work-based learning, and building career pathways.
The list of benefits associated with earning a college degree is extensive and oft-repeated. It includes higher average lifetime earnings, employment security, greater self-esteem, and better health, among many others.
Amid all of this disruption, the number of U.S. workers leaving or changing their jobs sharply increased. Known variously as the Great Resignation, Reshuffle, or Realignment, the trend has been cast in the cultural imagination as a collective desire on the part of the American workforce for more rewarding or meaningful work.
Over the past 80 years, our nation has made great strides in improving access to college, and then ensuring that many more students could complete a college degree.
Spring 2022 enrollment numbers from the National Student Clearinghouse reveal a fifth straight semester of enrollment declines, with more than 1 million fewer students enrolled compared to spring 2020
Higher education’s measurement of student success is in the midst of an evolution. For nearly five decades, success efforts focused on access, then two decades with completion as the horizon for success, and now the focus is extending to student outcomes beyond completion.
Applied connections between education and work are increasingly a part of undergraduate education in the United States.
Two centuries after the first historically Black colleges and universities were founded, the 101 accredited HBCUs in operation today continue to deliver on their legacy of expanding educational opportunity for Black students that leads to successful and fulfilling lives.
As a field, higher education has experienced a continuing evolution in how to measure success. For nearly five decades success efforts were focused on access, followed by the past decade and a half pursuing completion, and the field now has a growing focus on the value of a degree and student outcomes beyond completion.
Strada’s prior research on undergraduate perceptions of the value of their education demonstrates that students value their education most when they receive support to connect their education and career interests.
In the wake of historic pandemic-related enrollment declines, postsecondary institutions have responded by developing and expanding innovative approaches to engaging learners.
The baccalaureate degree remains the surest path to economic mobility, employment stability, and a host of associated social benefits.
Steep declines in undergraduate enrollment during 2020 and 2021 threaten to widen existing equity gaps in college completion and career opportunities.
Nondegree credentials have been growing rapidly for decades. During the COVID-19 economic crisis, interest in nondegree credentials and skills training options was especially high. Questions about their quality and value, however, remain.
The high school classes of 2020 and 2021 have endured massive disruption to their education.
From its onset in early 2020, the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has upended life across the world, leading to uncertainty around health, work, finances, education, and a host of other issues.
The pandemic has led to a national crisis of widespread disruption to both work and education for millions of adults in the U.S., especially those from historically marginalized groups.
We asked alumni nationwide who had borrowed money to go to school if their loans were worth it. Strada Education Network and Gallup surveyed a nationally representative sample of more than 6,000 student loan holders.
Our mission is to improve lives by forging clearer and more purposeful pathways between education and employment.
How Intermediaries Can Connect Education and Work in a Postpandemic World