Grounded in JFF’s legacy of postsecondary networks, Engaging Leaders and Empowering Vision that Actively Transforms Education (ELEVATE) provides the infrastructure, community, and vision needed to achieve enduring state-level impact and move us towards JFF’s North Star goal: By 2033, 75 million people facing barriers to economic advancement will have quality jobs.
ELEVATE is a national network reimagining postsecondary education to deliver real skills, real credentials, and real opportunity for economic advancement.
Launched in 2025, ELEVATE is a powerful space built by Jobs for the Future to advance innovation, scale solutions, and transform education-to-employment pathways.
The network brings together a broad coalition of state-level leaders from success centers, departments of education, system offices, education agencies and associations, and key postsecondary institutions to:
Credentials must be trusted containers of dynamic, transferable skills that connect to work and unlock economic mobility and long-term career success.
The time, money, and other barriers to students earning a credential of value must be minimized while ensuring a strong return on their investment.
Postsecondary programs must provide universal structures and supports that ensure students learn and attain skills that lead to good jobs.
JFF offers personalized support that goes beyond guidance—we work alongside you, becoming your dedicated partner through hands-on collaboration.
We foster open communication, honest reflection, and shared accountability.
We embrace a “learn, apply, reflect together” model to drive continuous improvement.
We recognize that states are critical units of change and aim to empower them through partnerships and technical assistance.
We partner with state systems to embed scalable, sustainable transformation through long-term policy and funding opportunities.
ELEVATE unites the people shaping the future of postsecondary—state and regional leaders, policymakers, employers, and innovators.
Together, we amplify ideas, share solutions, and drive state-level changes that ripple across the nation.
We connect state-level education and workforce leaders with partners across the United States to drive major state-scale change.
Members engage in the network through:
ELEVATE is for partners with state and regional postsecondary impact – a one-stop shop to connect education/workforce leaders with partners everywhere in the U.S. to drive major state-scale change.
“[We have] a chance to reimagine postsecondary education and ensure it works for everyone.”
Our vision: By 2033, 75 million Americans facing barriers to economic advancement will have quality jobs.
Scaling College in 3 in Ohio and Virginia is focused on advancing high-quality reduced-credit bachelor’s degree pathways. Through this initiative, JFF and American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) are bringing together universities and state higher education agency leaders from Ohio and Virginia to explore new, reduced-credit bachelor’s programs that are learner-centered and demand-driven. We are grateful to Arnold Ventures and the Strada Education Foundation for supporting this effort.
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The North Carolina Student Success Center and JFF developed an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Guidance Handbook to assist North Carolina community college leaders, faculty, and staff in ethically and effectively integrating AI technologies into educational practices, student services, and administrative operations. This work was made possible thanks to generous support from Ascendium Education Philanthropy a division of Ascendium Education Group.
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The California Community College Chancellor’s Office launched the CA Competency-based Education Collaborative to explore direct assessment competency-based education with eight institutions. JFF provided technical assistance, coaching, and event support leading up to the forthcoming release of a blueprint for developing direct assessment CBE programs.
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JFF partnered with the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, the Foundation for California Community Colleges, and the Student Centered Design Lab to better understand the barriers students face in applying for, receiving, and maintaining financial aid. Paid student research interns (including Adrian Cardona, Beheshta Barien Qaderi, Jerry Jasso, Mia Luque, Trish Ho, and Paulo Camacho) helped shape every stage of the work, from survey design to identifying themes. Their insights showed that improving financial aid is not just about policy; this work is about understanding the student journey and designing collaboratively with students, not just for them.
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Humanities at Work in Arizona, New York and South Carolina strives to embed experiential and work-based learning into associate’s degree humanities programs so more students can connect discipline-specific skills to quality jobs. Supported by the Mellon Foundation, this two-year initiative brings together state coordinating entities and community colleges in Arizona, New York, and South Carolina through a multi-state community of practice focused on project-based learning, internships, strategy mapping, and identifying quality indicators that can help scale effective practice across systems.
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From 2019-2023, JFF served as the Learning and Management Partner for the Kresge Foundation’s BOOST initiative. BOOST connected families with low incomes to critical human services supports and educational and career pathways to advance multigenerational family economic success. In six cities, community colleges and human services nonprofits partnered to support the economic advancement of families as part of the BOOST initiative. Partners were guided by six core tenets for advancing family social and economic success: partnership, learning, lifetime and springboard jobs, sustainability, racial equity, and the 2Gen approach, or whole-family approach, as defined by Ascend at the Aspen Institute.
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In 2023, through funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, JFF launched an eight-month community of practice with the Student Success Center Network and representatives from 19 community college across four states (Arkansas, Ohio, New York, and Wisconsin). Its goal was to raise awareness of the challenges faced by student parents and share innovative strategies for making colleges more welcoming and supportive. The community of practice focused on opportunities to adopt the 2Gen framework, which centers family well-being and enhances student parent success.
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In 2024, with support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, JFF began working with Student Success Centers in Arkansas, North Carolina, and Wisconsin to develop state-specific agendas for improving family economic advancement. JFF collaborated with state planning teams to co-design a series of virtual and in-person convenings. These convenings included relevant stakeholders from postsecondary, workforce systems, health and human services, early childhood, and CBOs, as well as student parents, and culminated in development of strategy maps outlining high priority solution paths for advancing economic mobility for families in each state.
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ELEVATE builds on JFF’s legacy of postsecondary networks to transform how learners earn and use credentials. By testing bold ideas and scaling proven practices, we’re reimagining pathways that lead to quality jobs and lasting economic advancement.
Accelerating our education pathways systems toward equitable economic advancement. Today’s education ecosystem must meet the needs of today’s learners. This means learner-centered outcomes, pathways between education and careers, and policies and practices that support both…
JFF works with colleges, states, and partners to design flexible, learner-centered pathways that help adults complete educational goals and achieve economic mobility. Adult learners (students 25 or older) represent approximately one-third of all enrolled college…
Postsecondary education is saturated with credentials that don’t deliver. JFF is catalyzing an effort to help advance development of credentials of value that open doors and carry weight across a lifetime. With more than 40…
A literature review of the data and evidence around adult learners (age 25+) in the U.S. postsecondary education system, with particular attention to online settings and Black learners. Black Adult Learners and Online Settings:…
JFF is collaborating with The PwC Foundation to support a cohort of 10 exemplary public community and technical colleges to expand and scale effective programs that connect learners to paid work-based learning and quality jobs.…
JFF’s Normalizing Education Collective is a community of practice that supports practitioners in postsecondary prison education by providing access to top resources, peer-to-peer learning, and mentorships. Results *Note: project is ongoing Through participation in the…
Why Institutional Efforts Must Be Rooted in the Authentic Needs of Learners Community college representatives across the four Student Success Centers who participated in a community of practice share their learnings around the 2-Generation Framework—a…
Join the Network! Millions of people are unable to access education and training and find jobs that drive economic success for themselves and their families. Join leaders across the country taking meaningful action so that our people, our economy, and our country can thrive.
How Leaders and Workers Can Prepare for a Reshaped Future of Work