What Employers Can Do for Postsecondary Completion

Michael Staton

1. Encourage your employees to earn credentials and degrees
   1. Expand tuition assistance and make it more accessible to hourly workers.
   2. Co-design programs with community colleges to help employees learn while they earn
   3. Ensure basic skills training is built into your on-boarding and technical skills training
   4. Give employees credit for on-the-job learning and training
2. Build a stronger, more diverse pipeline of new hires
   1. Create more internship, co-op, and apprenticeship programs
   2. Improve your articulation of skill needs and gaps to educators
   3. Lend experienced staff as faculty members to high-demand community colleges
3. Reach young people and the general public through your marketing and communications
   1. Connect young people to critical information and resources
   2. Carry messages to the general public
   3. Provide paid advertising to support postsecondary success
4. Address challenging issues with your products and services
   1. Create new innovations in teaching and learning
   2. Build community and connectivity among cohorts of learners
5. Lend your leadership and advocacy voice
   1. Use your government affairs to advocate for innovation, incentives, and accountability in community colleges
   2. Encourage leadership to make public statements and/or offer testimony
   3. Participate in outreach to other employers and their leaders
6. Align your corporate giving and social responsibility programs.
   1. Provide access to your workplaces and workers as role models
   2. Encourage employees to mentor and tutor young people pursuing postsecondary education
   3. Encourage service as board members of community colleges and related non-profits
   4. Co-invest in grants that build the evidence base around postsecondary completion