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ACT established the ACT Scholars program to nurture the academic talent of graduate and community college students at the University of Iowa and Kirkwood Community College, respectively. ACT emphasized scholarships for students from populations for which the cost of higher education could have presented a significant barrier to college access and accomplishments.

To commemorate their journey from application to graduation, ACT has invited these scholars to share their stories. Lauren Carr is an Asian American student at Kirkwood Community College. She graduated from Warsaw High School in Warsaw, Illinois, with the full intent of a successful life after college.

What are you studying? What degree do you plan to earn?

My program of study at Kirkwood Community College is dental assisting. The dental assisting program has taught me more than I could’ve imagined while choosing my major. All of my professors and classmates have been amazing and driven toward success, and I cannot thank them enough for teaching me the skills needed for this career choice. I plan to graduate at the end of the fall term in 2023 and further my career as a dental assistant in Iowa.

What was your motivation for going to college?

My motivation for college was my family and my passion for the dental field. I saw college as an opportunity to make a difference in the community by helping others have healthy, beautiful smiles. I plan to receive my associate’s of applied science (AAS) and become a registered dental assistant (RDA) by graduation. I selected dental assisting as my area of study because of my passion for the dental field, and I believe that a smile can brighten anyone’s day.

Who inspired or supported you on your college-going journey?

My parents have played an incredible role in helping me throughout this journey through support, love, and having someone to talk to.

What is the biggest challenge you have faced as a first-generation college student, and how did you work to overcome it?

My biggest challenge throughout this journey would be the stress of working 30-hour weeks while being a full-time college student and trying to get through a 64.5-credit-hour program. Working 30 hours a week and trying to pay for college, rent, and necessities is difficult while being in school full time, but with the help of my family, friends, and Kirkwood’s amazing program and resources, I was able to get through this program.

What advice would you give to other first-generation college students?

My advice would be to have someone there for you through college because you may get homesick, stressed, and overwhelmed. As someone who went through that, having a support system was the best possible thing I could have, and that is what has gotten me through college. I have set goals for myself each week on homework to get done, how many hours I can get at work, and an end goal of graduating college with my AAS and RDA license. I plan to achieve my goals by getting homework done, studying, and realizing the end goal of college is to be successful in life after college.

What does the ACT scholarship mean to you? How does it affect your college-going journey?

This being my last semester in college, I need to focus on the end goal, and this scholarship helps me focus on that.

For Native American Heritage Month, ACT is pleased to feature student voices from the Virginia Tribal Education Consortium (VTEC) Native Youth Community Project (NYCP). VTEC is dedicated to serving Indigenous youth by addressing the college and career readiness needs of Native high school students nationwide. ACT’s Center for Equity in Learning and VTEC have worked together to eliminate barriers to academic support in Virginia's Tribal Nations through the Forward Academy – a set of programs and supports for college and career awareness, preparation, engagement, and success among students and their parents – and ACT’s American College Application Campaign (ACAC), which provides training for high schools hosting college application events, with a focus on first-generation college students and students from low-income families.

Jobs for the Future (JFF) is a national leader in advocating for equity in workforce success; this November, JFF announced that it had received a $20 million donation from MacKenzie Scott to launch its North Star fundraising campaign to help 75 million people facing systemic barriers work in quality jobs. In recent months, JFF President and CEO Maria Flynn engaged in conversations with ACT about strategies for improving postsecondary education and workforce equity, alignment, and success. Read on to learn from Maria about how certain populations are underserved by education and workforce systems, why career services and navigational supports need to be modernized, and the importance of intentionality and consistency in education and workforce success efforts.

How are people who are underserved by the education and workforce systems affected when those systems are not aligned?

Our education and workforce systems are inequitable, disconnected, and hard to navigate. That truth was the key driver behind the creation of Jobs for the Future 40 years ago — and it remains true today. Everything from funding streams to accountability systems to governance structures are fragmented, misaligned, and bureaucratic. Too often, rather than being centered on the needs of workers and learners, these systems are centered around the needs and capabilities of the systems themselves.

Here’s an example of what happens to people when systems are not aligned: Overall, the national unemployment rate remains historically low, but if you look at specific populations, you see huge disparities. Take New York City: The overall unemployment rate is about 5%. But broken down, unemployment rates are 17% for young people, 12.2% for Black/non-Hispanic people, 7.5% for Black, Indigenous, and people of color; and 1.3% for white/non-Hispanic people.

A recent JFF report argues that the U.S. needs to make systemic reforms and strategic investments to modernize career services and navigational supports. What does an effective, equitable career-planning services system look like for students and job seekers?

Career services is one of those areas where we need big, bold change to serve the needs of today’s learners and employers. Functionally, it’s not that different from when I was a student in 1989 and I walked into the career services office and pulled a paper tab off a bulletin board. That paper tab may now be an online listing, but the system is still highly transactional and focused on short-term solutions. And the results aren’t great, especially considering how much more college costs today: Just over half of the class of 2021 had full-time employment six months after graduation.

We see a two-part approach to modernizing career services: First, offer students access to tools and data that can help them identify promising career paths and in-demand skills based on field or region. Firms like Lightcast and AstrumU are already doing this work, which can help learners get beyond the one-time transaction system and consider how they can put their skills to use on a career pathway.

Second, and equally important, is expanding the system to recognize the breadth and depth of today’s learner population. Today’s students may be supporting families or working while they attend school; an effective, modern career-services system includes learn-and-earn opportunities, in-demand credential programs, and a range of opportunities that reflects the range of students seeking them.

What are the biggest ways in which leaders can be more intentional and consistent in their efforts to help people – especially students of color, first-generation students, and students from underinvested communities – successfully achieve both higher education and workforce success?

Intentionality is critical to equitable economic advancement, because our systems don’t create the conditions for equity on their own.

Data is a key starting point for any institution: What are the markers of success and key performance indicators, and where are the gaps in achieving those? Don’t make assumptions about what’s needed — instead, look at the information and see what needs it surfaces.

We recently kicked off a collaboration with Northern Virginia Community College to help connect Black learners to high-wage, high-demand careers, and it began with a comprehensive discovery process that yielded a lot of valuable insights about enrollment versus completion, accessibility of academic and career resources, and institutional use of career outcomes data. All of this led to a new strategic plan for the college that’s tailored to student needs and the local market.

Will you share a memorable moment from collaborating with colleagues on workforce development – one where you saw firsthand how this work affects people’s lives?

I’ll share two. First, at JFF’s 2023 Horizons summit, we heard from a fantastic group of Gen Z learners and workers about what they want the workforce of the future to look like. These young people came to us from all over the country and told us, bluntly, that they are not willing to inherit these broken systems. They highlighted how critical it is to center the voices of the learners and workers who are part of these systems and calling for change.

The other is from our Center for Justice and Economic Advancement, which works to eliminate systemic barriers for people with records and people who are currently incarcerated. They’ve launched a new advocacy framework and campaign called “Normalizing Opportunity,” and they have partnered to create beautiful pieces of art to celebrate icons and leaders in this effort. I was fortunate enough to meet the people portrayed when the artwork was unveiled, and they highlighted for me how much talent, drive, and passion are left on the table when we exclude people with records from the workforce. It reminded me how important this work is — for our systems and our economy, but also for the people at the heart of it.

Maria K. Flynn is president and CEO of Jobs for the Future (JFF), a national nonprofit that drives transformation of the U.S. education and workforce systems to achieve equitable economic advancement for all by designing solutions, scaling best practices, influencing policy and action, and investing in innovation. www.jff.org

Today is National STEM Day, an annual celebration dedicated to promoting science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education and careers for young learners. According to ACT data, not enough U.S. students are equipped for STEM opportunities — now or in the future. The current state of STEM readiness is cause for serious concern: Only 15% of students met the ACT STEM College Readiness Benchmark in 2023 — down from 20% just four years ago, in 2019.

The ACT STEM College Readiness Benchmark represents the level of readiness students need to have a 50% chance of earning a B or higher and about a 75% chance of earning a C or higher in typical first-year college STEM courses (for example, calculus, biology, chemistry, and physics). ACT research shows that, for STEM majors, STEM scores are positively related not only to succeeding in individual math and science courses but also to earning a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 or higher, persisting in a STEM major, and earning a STEM-related bachelor’s degree.

How can we boost STEM readiness? ACT research has identified some promising strategies. Taking rigorous science courses, including physics, in high school is vital to college readiness. Almost one-quarter of students taking at least three years of math or science met the STEM Benchmark, while only 2% to 6% of those who took no more than two years of math or science did so — a fourfold difference in science and more than an elevenfold difference in math.

Rigorous courses should be available to all students, not just those interested in earning an advanced STEM degree. However, in 2015, fewer than 50% of high-poverty high schools offered any physics courses, and only about 25% of high poverty high schools offered courses in computer science. This is a critical inequity because labor market projections point to strong growth in high- and middle-skill jobs, such as those in the healthcare professional and support services, financial operations, and computer and mathematical science fields. These occupations require more than a high school diploma but often less than a four-year STEM degree.

Entry into these occupations can be accelerated via high-quality dual enrollment programs through partnerships with local community colleges, four-year institutions, and business and industry. ACT uses the term “dual enrollment” to encompass early college high school, dual credit, and concurrent enrollment programs. But regardless of the name, all of these models allow students to earn college credit while still in high school. Research has demonstrated that students who earn postsecondary credits while simultaneously completing their high school diploma stay more engaged in the classroom and graduate at higher rates than their peers, and are also more likely to continue their education after high school to complete a recognized postsecondary credential.

Moreover, many dual enrollment programs in the technology and health fields are explicitly designed for — and with curricular input from — local employers. Such programs offer a unique opportunity for the business community to help better align K-12 and postsecondary education with workforce needs. States and local districts should invest in or seek public-private partnership opportunities to make access to such courses a reality for all students.

ACT will continue to provide these kinds of insights for students and organizations that support them so that we can work together and empower 20.2 million more learners to exit high school ready for postsecondary and work opportunities by 2032. Changing demographics demand that colleges and employers seek and engage a population that is increasingly diverse and mostly from low-income households. Our vision and aligned work will create solutions for a world of evolving opportunities and provide more support for learners to chart pathways toward greater mobility and economic prosperity.