Pathways to Recovery lays out how the Back on Track Through College model, drawing on the best work in the field, can not only help recover and advance thousands of dropouts but also keep thousands more young people engaged in school so they don’t drop out as well. The time is ripe to look closely at small-scale efforts that are achieving promising results—and to design public and private investment strategies that will enable this type of focused and intentional programming to succeed and grow.

The much-needed strategies featured in this brief come at a time when the national movement around recovering and advancing dropouts and struggling youth is growing. In January 2012 at a special White House event, America’s Promise and Civic Enterprises released Opportunity Road, which includes new economic costs to taxpayers and society for each 16- to 24-year-old who fails to graduate high school and/or enter the workforce.

Reports like these underscore the tremendous need for a more concerted effort to help these young people attain a postsecondary credential on the way to a productive adulthood. Pathway to Recovery offers a model for doing just that.