Texas Regional Pathways Network (TRPN)

About the TRPN

The Texas Regional Pathways Network (TRPN) brings together state and regional leaders to build strong educational and career pathways that prepare Texans for careers in high-wage, in-demand industries.

Launched in 2019, the TRPN is a signature initiative of the Tri-Agency Workforce Initiative, through which the Texas Education Agency, Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, and Texas Workforce Commission are working collaboratively to increase economic prosperity by linking education and industry. Pathways leaders engaged in the TRPN represent multiple sectors, including secondary and postsecondary education, workforce development, business and industry, local government, and nonprofit organizations.

Since its launch, Jobs for the Future (JFF) has been a lead partner to the TRPN, shaping the network’s design and strategy and helping more than 30 regional intermediaries—such as workforce boards, education service centers, community colleges, and nonprofits—strengthen their partnerships, map local assets, leverage data effectively, plan for sustainability, expand work-based learning, and communicate impact. Through coaching, webinars, and meetings, JFF equipped regional leaders with the tools and strategies they need to turn the TRPN’s vision into action.

Challenge

Texas has one of the most advanced and rapidly evolving college and career pathways landscapes in the country. Pathways stakeholders are navigating multiple models and partnership structures—such as early college high schools, P-TECH, dual credit, career and technical education (CTE) programs, and Rural Pathway Excellence Partnership Programs (R-PEPs)—each with distinct design features, expectations, and outcomes. At the same time, labor market needs vary significantly across regions, requiring pathways to adapt to different industries and workforce demands. Layered on top of this complexity is a shifting postsecondary policy environment in the state, with changes in funding formulas, dual credit guidance, and transfer and credentialing requirements. Together, these factors create a complex landscape that challenges educators, employers, and policymakers to advance high-impact strategies and coordinate efforts so that pathways truly lead to quality careers and credentials of value.

The TRPN is designed to solve problems that individual partners and regions cannot address alone. Without a statewide framework, regional partnerships risk inconsistent quality, limited alignment with state policy, and duplication of efforts. Some regions may lack the funding or technical capacity to sustain pathways work, while others face data gaps that make it difficult to compare progress across the state. A statewide network like TRPN provides the connective tissue: it establishes shared standards and supports, reduces duplication, builds regional capacity, ensures access to resources, and surfaces and scales innovations that might otherwise remain isolated.

Approach

The TRPN is grounded in a statewide framework for high-quality pathways implementation, customized for the Texas context by leveraging foundational concepts in JFF’s Pathways to Prosperity framework.

The TRPN drives pathways infrastructure, implementation, and innovation through two complementary initiatives:

• Regional Intermediaries: Regional intermediaries representing one of Texas’s 28 workforce development areas focus on developing regional pathways infrastructure with goals to create systems that support scalable and sustainable pathways aligned with industry demand. Each intermediary designs and implements a regional strategic plan to address pathways gaps and industry needs. They play an important role in linking regional goals and systems change with statewide priorities defined by the Tri-Agency Workforce Initiative, helping cross-sector partners adopt new practices and strategies for advancing pathways and defining quality indicators to track regional progress.
• Regional Pathways Implementation Teams: Regional pathway teams, composed of local education agencies, at least one institution of higher education, a workforce board, and employers focus on implementing pathways aligned with a specific targeted industry and developing goals around student outcomes. Pathways implementation grantees play a key role in bringing partners together to enhance programs of study, expand quality work-based learning, strengthen advising, and create stronger links between secondary and postsecondary education.

TRPN Members

The intentional design of the network helps break down traditional silos between secondary and postsecondary education and workforce partners by regularly bringing together cross-sector teams within regions and designing and monitoring mutually agreed-upon strategic plans and goals. The common language and alignment around goals also help network members pursue other state and national funding opportunities to sustain and scale high-quality pathways. This has been especially impactful for rural communities, bringing new resources into areas of the state with unique challenges to advancing pathways for all students.

The network has reached more than 120 local education agencies, more than 35 institutions of higher education, 24 workforce boards, and more than 100 employers across the state. In all, 98 grants have been awarded since the launch of the network, expanding pathways into more than 20 in-demand industries across the state.