In 2024, a degree alone is not always enough to secure a well-paying position. By some measures, about half of bachelor’s degree holders nationwide are underemployed a year after graduation, taking positions that don’t employ their skills or require a degree and earning around 30 percent less than their peers who have managed to obtain jobs that do require a college education. But the chances of being underemployed decrease by almost 50 percent for those graduates who have at least one hands-on experience while in school. Work-based learning—encompassing internships, apprenticeships, cooperatives, and other forms of experiential development—is one way students of all ages can gain the skills they need to land a job with a livable wage.

Over the past decade, Congress has promoted career and technical education (CTE) through legislation such as the Every Student Succeeds Act, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, and the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act amendment of the Perkins Career and Technical Education Act. The Department of Education responded by increasing its CTE resources for researchers and practitioners, naming work-based learning as a national initiative to help students expand their skill sets and prepare them for the workplace. One college-completion program in Minnesota is now adopting work-based learning as part of a new plan to better equip participants for careers after graduation, adding career advising to its program and hands-on experiences to its curriculum.

Wallin Education Partners (Wallin), a nonprofit organization based in St. Paul, helps provide a path to a college degree for high school graduates from low-income backgrounds in the Twin Cities area and across Minnesota by providing financial aid, individually tailored advising, and now an expanded set of career support services. Over the past decade, the program has served over 2,500 students and boasted graduation rates above 87 percent, almost 20 percentage points higher than the state average. Enrollment increases year after year, and in 2023, Wallin welcomed over 500 students. Historically, Wallin has provided financial aid and academic advising services to its scholars—many whose parents did not attend college and most of whom are students of color—to help them succeed in college, but as noted above, graduating college is no longer a guarantee of professional success.

Professional success demands more than a credential, as two Wallin staff members emphasized in a conversation with MDRC. La Tasha Shevlin, director of career development, has been trying to place community members in jobs for most of her career and quickly came to understand that a college degree wasn’t enough to land a job paying a family-sustaining wage. Coming from the education sector, Shannon Oldenburg, director of strategic partnerships, arrived at the same realization. Both agree that a degree can be the means to economic opportunity, but, as Oldenburg puts it, “The end game is landing a job with family-sustaining wages, of which education is just an input.” “Students need to get hands-on experience, grow their professional network, and be able to articulate their skills in the professional world, all while getting their degree,” says Shevlin.

It isn’t just Wallin personnel who see the value in these often unstated but essential attributes. At annual career fairs hosted by the organization, employers frequently say they’re looking for soft skills (general competencies that make for an effective employee, such as interpersonal skills and good work habits) and networking prowess in addition to the academic knowledge and technical skills picked up in a major or program of study. Some have even formed partnerships with Wallin to bring its scholars on board as interns during their undergraduate years. The Wallin team believes the organization has an unparallelled ability to connect community and corporate employers in Minnesota with a local pool of qualified and diverse candidates.

To create a predictable path for both its employer partners and its scholars, Shevlin is helping Wallin build out its structure of career support services based on what she knows works from her experience as the former executive director of UpTurnships, an internship and career coaching program for high-potential college students from low-income backgrounds. This effort includes bringing on Wallin’s own career experts, who can provide one-on-one advising to connect students to employers and other career services and to help them build social capital and get hands-on experience through paid internships. These real-world activities will play a huge role in the future of Wallin’s program, from career days that expose scholars to different workplaces to internships and cooperatives that prepare them to enter the workforce.

In the long term, to ensure that all its scholars remain on track for rewarding and sustainable careers, Wallin wants to be able to follow their employment, salaries, and field of work over time. MDRC and Wallin just concluded a research planning period—funded by CoLab at the Constellation Fund—for a formal evaluation of the Wallin Scholars Program, including a randomized controlled trial.^[1] The proposed study will look at the program’s effects on academic outcomes, such as college persistence and graduation, while establishing a foundation for longer-term data collection on economic outcomes after college. Analyses of employment metrics and graduation rates will get Wallin closer to understanding the potential impact its program has on the end goal, a family-sustaining wage.

With tuition costs and student loan debt on the rise, students want assurance that the degrees they invest in will provide positive returns. This desire is particularly relevant for those from low-income backgrounds, who see a college degree as enabling economic mobility. Recognizing this shifting landscape, Wallin joins a growing number of states, schools, and organizations promoting work-based learning and providing the support needed for college students to land not only a job, but a secure career after graduation.