Modupe Marks was a 37-year-old Nigerian immigrant who ran her own spa and hair salon business in New York City when the recession hit in 2008. As her business tanked, she was left dangling without skills or credentials suited to the new economy.

With little formal education and no high school diploma, Marks took what work she could find, delivering newspapers into the wee hours of the morning. After she finished with one paper in Manhattan, she crossed the river for another delivery schedule in New Jersey.....

.....Not long ago, Marks would have likely ended up in an adult education class aimed almost exclusively at preparing her to pass the graduate equivalency diploma, or GED test. That test preparation would have done little to guide her to a job or further education.

Instead, Marks found her way to the innovative pre-college bridge program at La Guardia College in New York, part of the City University of New York system.

Marks went to La Guardia three days a week for four hours a day, a total of 12 hours a week for three months, taking courses built around GED-type skills but with content centered on the medical professions. After knocking out the GED, she moved on to an associate's degree at La Guardia and this fall will finish her bachelor's at Hunter College, also part of the CUNY system.....

.....The La Guardia system works, said a recent controlled study by MDRC, one of the leading companies assessing the outcomes of social programs. Students in the La Guardia bridge program were much more likely to be stuck with the preparation class, twice as likely to pass the exam, and three times as likely to go on to college......

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