Disrupt the Divide
July 30, 2026
At a Glance
JFF partnered with four community colleges to improve access, persistence, and completion in programs that lead to quality jobs in growing fields for learners who face barriers to economic advancement.
Across the United States, education and workforce systems play a central role in shaping learners’ access to economic opportunity. Yet, despite decades of reform, there are persistent patterns in who enrolls in and completes programs of study that lead to high-wage, high-growth careers, and who does not. For example, Black learners are disproportionately represented in postsecondary programs that have lower completion rates and lower average labor market returns, and Black workers are underrepresented in many high-wage STEM occupations. Too often, learners with talent and ambition encounter uneven access to information, education and training, supports, and pathways that connect education to economic mobility.
These patterns are visible across the learn-to-work ecosystem—from postsecondary enrollment and program completion to job quality and career advancement. National data underscore the consequences: A 2025 Gallup study led by Jobs for the Future (JFF), the Families and Workers Fund, and the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research found that 60% of U.S workers do not have a quality job—one that offers not only family-sustaining wages but also stability, safety, and opportunities for economic advancement. The study also found that such jobs are unevenly distributed across the U.S. workforce: Women, younger employees, and workers without a postsecondary degree are less likely to have one. The fact that so many workers lack access to quality jobs indicates a misalignment between education systems, workforce pathways, and labor market opportunities.
Addressing these challenges requires more than just expanding access to postsecondary education. It requires intentional efforts to examine and disrupt long-standing patterns in how learners move—or don’t—into programs that lead to economic advancement. It also requires solutions that are grounded in evidence, responsive to regional labor market needs, and tailored to the lived realities of learners and communities.
Community Colleges Are Catalysts for Economic Advancement
Community colleges sit at the center of this opportunity to ensure that more people have access to a quality job. Enrolling nearly 40% of all undergraduate learners, they are often the most demographically representative institutions in their regions, serving large numbers of learners of color, adult learners, working learners, first-generation learners, and those balancing caregiving and other responsibilities. With their strong community ties, critical support services, and workforce orientation, community colleges are uniquely positioned to help learners access, persist in, and complete programs that lead to high-wage, high-growth careers.
At the same time, community colleges often contend with inherited structures, policies, and practices that can unintentionally reinforce inequities in program access and outcomes. As a result, learners who could benefit most from high-opportunity pathways are sometimes the least likely to enroll in or complete them. This reality presents both a challenge and a powerful opportunity for change.
To explore how community colleges can more intentionally address such patterns, JFF launched the Disrupt the Divide initiative. JFF partnered with four community colleges in North Carolina and Pennsylvania to improve access, persistence, and completion in programs that lead to quality jobs in growing fields for all learners, particularly Black learners and others who face barriers to economic advancement:
- Delaware County Community College, Pennsylvania
- Durham Technical Community College, North Carolina
- Forsyth Technical Community College, North Carolina
- Stanly Community College, North Carolina
As participants in Disrupt the Divide, those colleges worked with JFF to analyze institutional data, examine learner experiences, and codesign and customize solutions grounded in evidence and responsive to regional labor market needs. The initiative focused on helping participating colleges identify where opportunity gaps were emerging within their own systems and test targeted approaches to close them.
About This Playbook
This playbook distills lessons learned from the Disrupt the Divide initiative into practical guidance for postsecondary leaders. It offers a road map for institutional action and is designed to support colleges seeking to strengthen pathways leading to high-wage, high-growth careers and supports for learners pursuing them. Specifically, this playbook does the following:
- Elevates evidence-based strategies that support learner access, retention, and completion in high-growth, high-wage, career-aligned programs
- Highlights emerging efforts and strategic partnerships between JFF and community colleges to design and deploy strategies that close gaps in access and success across the learn-to-work ecosystem
- Provides actionable steps that institutions can take to align academic offerings with labor market demand and better prepare and support learners for economic mobility
Together, these lessons demonstrate how community colleges can play a critical role in reshaping who benefits from high-opportunity educational pathways—and, in doing so, help build a workforce where more learners can thrive.
Our Process With Participating Colleges
JFF partnered with each institution to identify, adapt, and implement evidence-based strategies—later codified in this playbook as the Levers for Success—to increase learner access and success in programs aligned to high-growth, high-wage occupations. The colleges were provided with coaching, research and insights, and peer learning opportunities from JFF as they followed these iterative steps:
Each college convened an interdisciplinary team of leaders, faculty members, and staff members to define clear goals, roles, and decision-making processes; align the work with institutional priorities; and establish a shared vision to guide program selection and strategy development.
Using national and regional data on wages, projected job growth, and hiring demands—alongside institutional priorities—each college identified two programs aligned to quality jobs in growing fields for deeper analysis.
JFF analyzed multiple years of the four community colleges’ student-level data (enrollment, credits attempted and earned, GPA, program completion, and transfer rates), which were disaggregated by race, gender, and Pell Grant status, and compared patterns within the selected programs to trends within each college. In parallel, the team conducted focus groups, interviews, and surveys with learners, particularly Black learners and others facing barriers to economic advancement, as well as faculty and staff members.
JFF facilitated sessions where cross-functional college teams reviewed quantitative and qualitative findings, identified bright spots and opportunity gaps, and developed shared hypotheses about the structural drivers behind observed patterns.
Building on insights from the deep dive and data parties, JFF coaches worked with cross-functional college teams to prioritize a small set of high-impact strategies, translate them into concrete action plans, and align them with existing initiatives and resources.
As colleges began implementing the Levers for Success, JFF documented emerging results, surfaced implementation successes and challenges, gathered feedback from college partners, and supported continuous improvement.
The Building Blocks for Our Approach
This initiative builds on an initial pilot that JFF and Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA) conducted in 2022-2023. JFF partnered with NOVA to develop a model for increasing Black learners’ access to and success in high-growth, high-wage pathways and identify a set of evidence-based levers that could be adapted for use by other institutions. Guided by the “curb-cut effect”—the idea that solutions designed for one group can benefit many others—NOVA and JFF designed interventions that would support Black learners while also improving outcomes for all, including adult learners, student parents, and others who face barriers to economic advancement.
Through analyses of institutional and labor market data, learner journey mapping, and focus groups with Black learners, JFF and NOVA organized promising strategies across three phases of the learner journey.
Postsecondary transition
Colleges provide clear information, academic preparation, and support to address financial barriers as learners explore options, apply to colleges, and enroll in programs
The collegiate experience
Learners benefit from coherent academic planning and scheduling; inclusive, high-quality instruction; and accessible academic, social, and wraparound supports
Career progression
Learners have access to transparent program-to-career pathways, scaffolded career-connected and work-based learning (WBL) opportunities, and opportunities to build and use professional social capital to support entry into quality jobs, including those being reshaped by artificial intelligence (AI) and emerging technologies
Insights from JFF’s work with NOVA, along with the mixed-methods approach described above and our broader research on effective practices, provide the evidence base for the Levers for Success outlined in this playbook.
Participating Colleges and Programs of Focus
The four partner colleges and their selected programs of focus are listed below. Each program prepares learners for jobs that meet or exceed local living-wage benchmarks and offer clear opportunities for advancement.
| College | State | Locale | Total Enrollment | Semester | Programs of Focus |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Delaware County Community College | Pennsylvania | Urban | 7,402 | Fall 2024 | Legal Studies and Paralegal (associate’s degree); Paralegal Studies (certificate); and Medical Assistant (certificate) |
| Durham Technical Community College | North Carolina | Urban | 7,235 | Fall 2023 | Paralegal Technology (associate’s degree or diploma); Information Technology—Network Management (associate’s degree) |
| Forsyth Technical Community College | North Carolina | Urban | 9,099 | Fall 2024 | Mechatronics Engineering Technology (advanced manufacturing); Nursing (Licensed Practical Nurse training and associate’s degree) |
| Stanly Community College | North Carolina | Rural | 2,468 | Fall 2024 | Information Technology and Engineering/Advanced Manufacturing cluster (associate’s degree) |
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What We Learned
Levers for Success
Strategies in Practice
Adapting Our Approach
