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JFF was part of a White House event on Expanding College Opportunity. The President and First Lady spoke about expanding college opportunity for all students in the country, and then higher education, business, and nonprofit leaders pledged over 100 new commitments to action to achieve this goal. As part of the event, Achieving the Dream, Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and JFF announced their involvement in the new Breakthough Collaborative aimed at improving developmental education by implementing promising practices that accelerate progression through remediation and gateway courses, especially for those students who are the least college ready. JFF CEO Marlene Seltzer was on a panel with these and other partners on the topic of developmental education.
JFF was back at the White House less than two weeks later—Vice President Maria Flynn, and the National Fund’s Fred Dedrick attended the Opportunity for All event—to address the skills gap and long-term unemployment. The President spoke about these workforce development issues, and announced $150M in grants for “Ready to Work” partnerships through the Department of Labor. JFF discussed, with several of our current workforce partners, workforce development strategies such as work-based and on-the-job training, employer engagement in training programs, and the focus on getting long-term unemployed workers into middle- and high-skill jobs.
For further reading on JFF's takes on national policy, see our blog about this year's State of the Union Address, Making Sure Hard Work Pays Off.
