College to Career
This program taps BPS graduates who have worked in the healthcare, financial services, and biotechnology industries during high school, and supports them on their path through college to a career. This program creates a pipeline of talent and diversity for employers and career pathways for Boston residents.
With no growth in Boston's labor force, graduates of the Boston Public Schools represent an important source of labor and skill for employers. PIC "college-to-career coaches" work with students to overcome the social, financial, and academic barriers to completing college. Financial support for this initiative comes from the Boston Foundation, State Street, and Merck.
The Coaching Model
PIC college-to-career coaches support students and broker part-time employment in their industry of interest. Each coach – one for financial services, one for healthcare – works with a caseload of about 40 students, providing services based on the individual needs of students. Coaches work with students from high school graduation through college toward a career. Coaches assist students in accessing the resources available to them at their colleges, workplaces, and in the community. Coaches help participants find jobs related to their career pursuits, organize peer support sessions and industry seminars, and broker tutoring and other academic supports, as well as gap-filling scholarships, when funds are available.
20% of all job vacancies in the Greater Boston area are in the healthcare sector. Virtually all healthcare careers that provide upward wage mobility require postsecondary education.
Boston’s financial services firms increasingly demand a college degree as the preferred minimum requirement for employment. At the same time, financial services firms are experiencing difficulty recruiting college graduates from other regions to stay in Greater Boston, a high cost region.
CityLab Academy is a free, two-semester, degree track academic and job skills training program at Boston University School of Medicine. Students take science and lab classes and get hands on biomedical lab training for entry level positions in medical centers and biotech companies and begin earning college credits towards a degree in biomedical technology.
