October 1, 2024
JFF and partners have launched a program called OPT to expand access to dual enrollment, work-based learning, and a college and career navigation course in Colorado high schools.
At Jobs for the Future (JFF), we work with K-12 and postsecondary school systems across the country to design programs that enable learners to smoothly navigate pathways from high school to postsecondary education and training and careers. This work is part of our effort to advance the vision we present in our Big Blur report, which calls for erasing the boundaries between high school, college, and careers.1
In recent years, we’ve been encouraged to see that it’s becoming the norm for high schools to offer students supports that ease the transition to postsecondary work and learning. For example, students increasingly have opportunities to take dual enrollment courses, learn about and prepare for work through work-based learning experiences, and engage in structured programs offering education and career advice. While many states either require or incentivize schools to offer supports like those, schools are often unable to fully integrate them into a system that accelerates all students to and through postsecondary success. Dual enrollment, work-based learning, and high-quality individualized advising and career navigation services are offered to some students, but not all. Further, the students who do engage with these programs and services rarely experience them as a system of interconnected supports.
JFF is involved in a program in Colorado that’s focusing on finding effective and scalable ways to address those issues. With funding from an Education, Innovation, and Research (EIR) grant from the U.S. Department of Education, we partnered with Colorado Succeeds to launch an initiative called On-Ramps to Postsecondary Transitions (OPT), which brings together 19 schools from across the state whose shared goal is to ensure that access to dual enrollment, work-based learning, and a college and career navigation course is universal for all students.
The 19 OPT schools in Colorado are setting out to identify and overcome challenges and barriers that limit schools’ ability to create integrated postsecondary transition systems and develop effective models that can be replicated across the state.
They’re facing a complex challenge. Access to these supports is generally inconsistent across student populations.2 Students of color, students from low-income households, and students with disabilities often are unable to fully tap into the experiences that can accelerate their transitions to work and learning beyond high school. Data shows that dual enrollment and work-based learning can reduce equity gaps for these students. According to the What Works Clearinghouse, dual enrollment, in particular, is a powerful strategy that has positive impacts on postsecondary readiness and overall educational attainment.3 Students who take advantage of these services and resources are also more likely to enroll in college and/or earn an industry-based credential aligned to a field that offers quality jobs.
We believe that all young people, regardless of their racial, ethnic, socio-economic and/or academic background, should have access to supports and experiences that will prepare them to succeed. One of the goals of the OPT initiative is to find solutions that enable high schools to develop integrated systems of postsecondary transition supports that are accessible to every student.
The 19 OPT schools in Colorado are setting out to identify and overcome challenges and barriers that limit schools’ ability to create integrated postsecondary transition systems and develop effective models that can be replicated across the state. In partnership with the project’s third-party evaluator, NORC at the University of Chicago, JFF is assessing the impact of postsecondary transition supports offered in high schools and determining whether they can be scaled to serve all students regardless of background.
JFF is assessing the impact of postsecondary transition supports offered in high schools and determining whether they can be scaled to serve all students regardless of background.
State leaders in Colorado have made a firm commitment to building educational systems that strengthen the state’s homegrown workforce.4 In Colorado, over 90% of the in-demand jobs that provide a living wage require postsecondary education, but there is declining postsecondary enrollment among state residents.5 Since the 2010-11 academic year, Colorado resident undergraduate postsecondary enrollment has declined by 19%.6
And while Colorado has the highest overall statewide postsecondary credential attainment rate in the country at 62.9% (3.1 percentage points short of the state’s 66% goal), there is significant work ahead to address disparities in attainment rates between white Coloradans and members of other racial and ethnic populations.7 While white Coloradans have an attainment level of 62.8%, according to the Lumina Foundation, only 30.3% of residents who identify as Hispanic or Latine, 28.6% of those who identify as Native American or Alaska Native, and 34.3% of those who identify as Black have earned a credential.8
State and agency-level policies support innovative pathways efforts like OPT. And there are major initiatives to build an even more favorable policy environment. For example, the Secondary, Postsecondary and Work-Based Learning Integration Task Force, which was established by the state legislature, developed recommendations to further systematize innovative pathways efforts with goals and approaches aligned with those of OPT and JFF’s Big Blur vision.9 The task force’s report led to state alignment around a unified vision that by age 21, every Coloradan would have no-cost access to in-demand industry credentials, college credits within a defined postsecondary workforce readiness pathway, and high-quality work-based learning opportunities. Opportunity Now grant program is investing a total $85 million in innovative pathways partnerships across the state.10
OPT schools have spent the past six months developing a course of study called the College and Career Navigation Course (CCNC), which will be implemented in the 2024-25 school year for students in grade 9. As part of a general education experience, career awareness will be a key element of the CCNC curriculum. Schools have developed the CCNC in partnership with a cross-discipline group of education professionals, including advisors, teachers, administrators, coordinators of work-based learning programs, community relations specialists, and postsecondary access and success professionals.
As they move to grades 10 and 11, students in OPT schools will enroll in dual enrollment courses and increase their participation in work-based learning programs such as internships, job shadows, and other activities through which they have opportunities to learn about careers and experience workplaces firsthand. Through OPT, schools will intentionally and actively plan for all students to engage in those three supports and explore how they work together to help students plan for the future and succeed in post-high-school work and learning. We hope to see an increase in students’ awareness of career and education options, improved articulated plans for how students achieve their education and career goals, and accelerated transitions to and through postsecondary life.
For students who are members of populations that have faced barriers that limit their access to college and career navigation supports, dual enrollment courses, and work-based learning programs in the past, OPT schools will add tiered interventions utilizing enhanced communication tools and community-based supports to ensure that students are engaging in all three elements of OPT programs. Just as students who struggle with math or English classes receive extra support, students who have difficulty accessing and/or participating in postsecondary transition activities will benefit from targeted support.
JFF and Colorado Succeeds are developing tools and resources, including a community asset map and an OPT action plan, that OPT schools can use to develop a continuum of comprehensive services that can be mobilized to increase student engagement with and persistence in the promising components of the OPT model.
One aspect of the OPT initiative that JFF and our partners are especially enthusiastic about is the fact that a variety of different types of schools are members of the OPT cohort. The 19 participating schools represent rural, urban, and suburban communities across the state. The cohort includes traditional comprehensive high schools alongside schools that are most well known for their credit recovery programs. Some of the schools that have long histories of offering individualized advising, dual enrollment programs, and work-based learning experiences to small subsets of their student populations now see an opportunity to use OPT to develop strategies for scaling these offerings to make them available to all students. For example, schools that have long offered universal access to work-based learning can now use resources and services available through OPT to scale dual enrollment and individualized advising.
We’re optimistic that efforts like those will have ripple effects that lead to improvements in postsecondary transition supports at all high schools across Colorado, enabling more learners to plan and successfully navigate their pathways from high school to postsecondary education and training and careers.
The contents of this blog were developed under a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Education Innovation and Research (EIR) Program. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the U.S. Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the federal government.
