This case study features CUNY's partnership with Amazon and AWS, which has become a win-win-win for CUNY, Amazon, and the city of New York. It explores how these organizations are working together to overcome barriers for adult learners, and it details outcomes from the initial launch of the program.

Strong, ongoing collaboration between business and higher education offers a solution to a growing skill shortage. But to see changes at scale, partnerships must exist within an ecosystem that fosters regular communication, relays industry needs to the academic community, and demonstrates to educators the larger marketplace for those skills. This…

In 2018, BHEF and the Business Roundtable joined forces to create the Workforce Partnership Initiative (WPI). The initiative invited Business Roundtable CEOs to form multi-company partnerships and connect with leaders of postsecondary institutions to meet regional workforce needs. Dozens of CEOs responded, and the JPMorgan Chase Foundation awarded…

Creating a more equitable economy will require bold action by the city. But the private sector will also need to step up. This study provides a snapshot of six innovative employer-led initiatives to expand access to good jobs--with enormous potential for replication among other companies in New York. [The Gantcher Family Foundation provided…

As the COVID-19 pandemic ebbs, thousands of New Yorkers are searching for jobs, and employers across the state are struggling to fill empty positions. New York's publicly funded city and state community colleges are uniquely positioned to help bridge this gap, providing more job-focused education for mid-career adults and traditional college-age…

With funding from the National Science Foundation in 2014, the Business-Higher Education Forum (BHEF) launched a five-year project to demonstrate the efficacy of regional ecosystems of community colleges, four-year higher education institutions, and STEM-driven business in facilitating the retention and persistence of students in STEM fields. This…

This report demonstrates the power of business-higher education partnerships to create new kinds of STEM pathways that provide educational opportunity and economic mobility for underrepresented students. With funding from the National Science Foundation in 2014, the Business-Higher Education Forum (BHEF) launched a five-year project to demonstrate…

"Building the Workforce of the Future" is an in-depth, independent report on the first eighteen months of Career Pathways, New York City's sweeping new strategy for workforce development. In November 2014, Mayor de Blasio launched a sweeping new approach to workforce development in New York City. Unlike the previous model, which…

Fewer than 40 percent of Americans have a college degree. As the economy grows ever more dependent on a highly skilled workforce, this statistic speaks volumes about the future prosperity of the nation and its least-advantaged members. It also raises a critical question: What is being done to improve the educational attainment of the workforce?…

As policy makers have placed an increasing focus on training and preparing workers to obtain postsecondary credentials, questions remain about the value to various actors, especially for job seekers and workers who often invest time and money to obtain a credential with the hopes of improving their employment prospects and raising their earnings.…

In June 1993, a workforce development symposium was held at LaGuardia Community College, in New York, involving 119 business leaders and training and employment executives from the borough of Queens. The purpose of the meeting was to determine the critical training needs of the area's business community. Symposium participants were divided into…