Per Scholas

Although the U.S. economy is booming, the post-pandemic recovery has not been equitable, particularly for Latino, Black, and female-headed families. These families continue to face structural racism and systemic barriers to education, housing, employment, health care, and wealth accumulation, and large numbers struggle to make ends meet in low-paying jobs. Due to a combination of historical, social, economic, and cultural factors, certain groups, such as women, minorities, and individuals from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, have faced discrimination and systemic barriers to accessing education and opportunities, specifically in the tech industry. In fact, studies into racial equality across the industry highlight a worrying lack of diversity in tech.  

At the same time, jobs are available in the tech industry. In fact, in Q4 of 2023 alone, there were nearly 600,000 unfilled tech jobs across the United States that paid an average of $114,000 a year. More than 40% of these openings listed either no educational requirement or a minimum high school diploma or equivalent. Access to meaningful careers, opportunities for advancement, and wages sufficient for personal and familial investment are essential for individual well-being and the collective health of our society. Moreover, cultivating a diverse, skilled, and prosperous technological workforce enriches both companies and their employees. 

At Per Scholas, we excel in delivering comprehensive training for tech career development. Our track record demonstrates our effectiveness and efficiency in equipping learners with the necessary skills to kickstart their careers. With the capability to meet employer demands, our challenge now lies in facilitating connections between our graduates and prospective employers to realize the full value of our programs and bridge the gap between capable, well-trained individuals and employers who are eager to find them.

Per Scholas’ solution is to leverage generative AI to power a customized talent-matching solution that will accelerate matches between individuals skilled through alternative pathways, like Per Scholas’ proven training, and open roles that employers are struggling to hire. Working with AdeptID, a renowned talent-matching startup with prior experience in the workforce training space, Per Scholas will develop and implement an AI-driven solution to harness vast amounts of information across our databases to identify matches between alumni and employers’ open jobs much more efficiently than is possible today, delivering top candidate matches for each open role and providing rationale about why each is a stellar fit. We anticipate this model to generate significant learning for the broader workforce development field, by understanding how AI-enabled technology can best be married with human expertise to accelerate job attainment, and the most important data points needed to drive that model. If we can help even a fraction of individuals who are seeking better opportunities to more swiftly secure jobs that lead to high-growth careers in the thriving tech workforce, then economic conditions will improve for everyone.

We envision that this solution will be particularly impactful for individuals—primarily those from diverse backgrounds, and who are skilled through alternative routes—to match quickly and effectively into roles with employers. Per Scholas is committed to building a more diverse technical workforce—we intentionally recruit and engage talent historically excluded from the tech industry, and create pathways for individuals to begin their careers and employers to gain a diverse talent pool. Our learners, who represent communities across the United States, are primarily low- to moderate-income adults (18+) with a high school diploma or equivalency and people of color.  A customized, AI-powered talent-matching solution has immense repercussions for job attainment as well as for economic stability—the ability to attain a job within a few month, as opposed to several, not only has economic benefits (e.g., reduction/elimination of public benefits, increased tax payments), it also yields social benefits that reverberate into families and communities, including increased personal and family wealth, which will work to disrupt the impact of persistent economic and racial injustice over time.

Per Scholas is unique in that our leadership, staff, learners, and alumni are largely people of color and represent the communities in which we train. Many of our staff members, particularly on our training teams, are Per Scholas alumni (15% of all staff across the organization). Of our staff, 70% identify as people of color and 52% are women—two demographic categories often excluded from the tech industry. For more than 20 years, Per Scholas has been led by President and CEO, Plinio Ayala, who was born and raised in the South Bronx just as it grew into a national emblem for urban poverty and disinvestment. His experience instilled a lifelong passion for creating economic opportunity, and he has devoted his career to building “win-win” solutions to social and economic problems. 

Because Per Scholas is learner-focused—not just in the impacts we are seeking but the ways in which we seek to achieve those impacts—we are confident that the voices of our core constituency will be meaningful incorporated into the design and implementation of our solution. Per Scholas learners are surveyed regularly during their training, and we are committed to consistently assessing and utilizing learner feedback to inform decisions. This constant feedback loop has led to major revisions in our recruiting and admissions processes, language, and program design. For example, in 2021 we redesigned our recruiting and admissions process to make it more learner-centric and culturally responsive, by developing a composite profile made up of actual experiences. This allowed us to very intentionally shift the power dynamics of our admissions process to be much more learner-centric and learner-led. We improved the user experience through technology automation and dramatically shortened the admissions process. As a result, we saw a significant increase in applications, which nearly doubled from 2021 to 2022.

At the Prototype stage, Per Scholas has accomplished significant milestones in building and testing our solution. We've secured a key partner and identified target markets for roll-out. Recently, we developed a working prototype and are actively conducting user testing to refine the model. While the solution has not yet been field-tested or fully deployed across all markets where our organization has a presence, initial tests with resumes and job postings in March 2024 have provided valuable insights for further model enhancements. We plan to launch implementation in 2-3 markets by fall 2024, leveraging our progress and user feedback to ensure a robust and impactful rollout.

Per Scholas’ work is deeply rooted in workforce development and equity, and our expertise lies in providing hands-on technical instruction that prepares individuals for employment in the tech industry. With recognition that once developed and tested this solution has broad implications for workforce development as a whole, we seek additional expertise and input in the areas including but not limited to measurement and evaluation and in-kind/pro-bono legal support to enhance our existing capabilities, as well as connections to stakeholders (such as employer partners looking to fill open tech roles) who can provide feedback and valuable insight on our prototype and subsequent iterations.

Per Scholas is excited about the promise of Generative AI. We anticipate that this project will yield substantial insights for the field by uncovering the optimal integration of AI-enabled technology and human expertise to expedite job attainment, as well as identifying the key data points essential for driving this model forward. By harnessing this technology, job seekers across industries could be matched with open roles much more efficiently than is humanly possible today. Moreover, this solution will help solve employer hiring needs, which will directly augment workforce development, individual, and community economic strength. We also expect AI-generated candidate profiles will provide both individuals and businesses with better job fits, leading to increased employee longevity and both employer/employee satisfaction and productivity. There is quite a bit of research available on how the use of detailed data can help employers reduce HR costs; however, there is almost none detailing how data can support individuals to be matched with optimal opportunities. Per Scholas’ solution will lay the groundwork for this research and build a greater understanding of the power of data, not only from an employer's perspective but from the perspective of the job candidate.

Impact on Individuals: We anticipate that through the use of this generative AI solution, through the capacity to highlight unique talents and skills, individuals will be able to be matched with suitable employment and be on the road to earning a thriving wage much more quickly than before. A more rapid entry into a salaried position will create positive economic benefits. According a brief published by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a good-paying job makes it easier for workers to live in healthier neighborhoods, provide quality education for their children, secure child care services, and buy more nutritious food—all of which affect health. Using data to match employees to companies will also increase job compatibility, and therefore employee involvement and productivity. A 2019 study published in the National Library of Medicine confirms that person-job alignment has a significant positive effect on innovation behavior by enhancing job involvement.

Impact on Employers: This solution will furnish employers with comprehensive data, empowering them to make better-informed hiring decisions, pinpoint ideal candidates, and substantially reduce time and recruitment expenses. Ultimately, this data-driven approach enhances the caliber of hires, mitigates bias, and streamlines the recruitment process. This approach will enhance traditional recruitment practices that often rely on intuition and subjective evaluations, and will instead apply quantitative metrics and advanced analytics to identify the most suitable talent for a specific role.

Impact on Communities:  With individuals experiencing shorter periods of unemployment, communities will benefit. Obvious benefits include economic stability through increased spending and reduced strain on social services. Additional benefits include decreased crime rate, higher civic engagement, and strengthened social fabric.

Per Scholas has consistently achieved our job attainment KPI: 80% of our graduates attain jobs within 12 months of graduation. Through our solution, our goal is to not only achieve this metric but to exceed it by getting graduates into thriving-wage roles (defined at 120% of MIT Living Wage) much more quickly after program completion, and as we increase the number of learners and alumni enrolled by 35% between 2024 and 2026, from 7,500 to 10,000.

Key metrics that we will track and benchmarks we will be aiming for include:

• 60% of graduates land jobs within four months of graduation (faster time-to-job attainment post-graduation)

• 80% of graduates achieving a thriving wage (120% of MIT Living Wage) within two years of initial job attainment post-training

In addition to enhancing our ability to improve job attainment outcomes without substantial increases in staffing, we anticipate meeting more employer hiring needs, exemplified through expanded numbers of employer partners who consistently hire Per Scholas graduates at greater volume. 

We are working with AdeptID, a mission-aligned, talent-matching startup with experience in partnering with workforce training organizations (such as Year Up, Multiverse, and Generation) and mission-aligned workforce development organizations (such as OneTen) that support low-wage workers. The core technology we are utilizing is a proprietary AI-enabled matching model that has been customized for Per Scholas-specific systems, databases, and workflows. The data from Per Scholas (stripped of PII and securely shared) is run through AdeptID’s AI models—which are trained on 100M+ real work histories, web-scale LLMs, and computational neuroscience—to create a powerful tool for matching talent with jobs.

Approximately a dozen full-time staff members from Per Scholas are providing a portion of their time as part of the solution team, including project leadership from the Chief of Staff; support from our VP of Information Systems on tech integration; program design and user feedback from our Talent Solutions and Alumni Engagement Teams; and data analysis from our M&E team. Key team members from AdeptID include the two co-founders (one is also the Chief Data Scientist) and the Head of Product, supported by a technical team of 10.

Per Scholas has been exploring this solution since summer of 2023. We began with the feasibility of its implementation and integration with our existing systems and assessed the broader landscape for alternative options before settling on our partnership with AdeptID in late 2023. We began building our custom model in early 2024 and started conducting initial feedback testing in March 2024.

Since our founding more than 28 years ago, Per Scholas has been committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Our leadership, staff, learners, and alumni are immensely diverse and reflective of the communities in which we operate. Of Per Scholas’ 498 staff members, 53% identify as women, 71% identify as People of Color, and 24% are alumni of the training. Our 9-member leadership team is composed of three males and six females, with two-thirds identifying as People of Color. For Per Scholas to prepare its learners for thriving careers in technology, where they will face an array of business challenges, they must learn to be part of a diverse community of learners and staff who express unique and multiple perspectives to deliver real-world solutions. Per Scholas has dedicated significant resources to intentionally creating an organization that honors diversity, equal access to opportunity and advancement, and an environment where staff, learners, and stakeholders are welcomed, respected, and valued. In 2020, Per Scholas revamped our programmatic language, including our mission statement, to publicly communicate these values. In 2021, we redesigned our recruiting and admissions process to make it more learner-centric and culturally responsive. Most recently, we added ‘culture’ and ‘belonging’ to our DEI statement to reflect our commitment to recognize our shared humanity and respect for one another. An area of opportunity for Per Scholas lies in diversifying our Board. Currently Per Scholas’ Board of Directors is composed of 23 members. Of these, seven (30%) identify as female. Almost 70% (16 Board Members) identify as white, with seven identifying as People of Color. Per Scholas understands that this presents an opportunity to engage a more diverse community on our Board Leadership team, and we have already developed strategies to increase the diversity of our Board.

Per Scholas is a dual constituency organization with a mission to advance economic equity through rigorous training for tech careers and to connect skilled talent to leading businesses. Our vision is a tech workforce as diverse as the customers it serves. 

We provide our proven technical training and professional development to diverse adult learners traditionally underrepresented in technology—including women, people of color, and individuals without a four-year degree; providing holistic supports from Financial Coaches and MSW-credentialed Learner Support Managers to ensure learners can persist and succeed in our rigorous courses; matching these newly skilled graduates with entry- and mid-level roles with hundreds of dynamic employer partners, from Fortune 500 companies to innovative startups; and then continuing to coach and support alumni for at least two years post-graduation as they build their careers. All of this is provided completely free of charge to every single one of our learners and alumni, the vast majority of whom come from low-to-moderate income households, regardless of their previous educational or professional background. Per Scholas’ track record for learner success includes:

• 85% of our learners graduate.

• 80% of graduates land jobs

• On average, in their first job post-graduation, our alumni earn 300% more than their pre-training wage.

• Nationally, Per Scholas graduates’ average starting wage is $23/hour or over $47,000/year in taxable income. 

• According to a gold-standard, randomized controlled trial conducted by evaluator MDRC, individuals who attend Per Scholas earn $6,300 more annually than their peers who have not engaged in Per Scholas training and report greater life satisfaction. 

Employer partnerships are essential to Per Scholas' success. At every level of our work, we collaborate with leading local and national tech employers to ensure our technical instruction, professional development strategy, and employer connections align with market needs and emerging trends. In addition to hiring our graduates, employer partners help develop and improve our training curricula, provide volunteers who offer unique professional development opportunities for our learners and governance both locally and nationally, support through philanthropic funding and, through our customized training arm, finance entire training programs themselves. Some of the positive impacts brought forth by our strategic partnership with employers and businesses include: 

• Reduced Risk in Hiring: We tailor our solutions to each company's specific needs and give employers an extended period of time to evaluate a trainee's potential before hiring.

• A More Diverse Talent Pool: We have a proven track record of developing high-quality tech talent from non-traditional sources and diverse backgrounds.

• Reduced Turnover: Our training solutions teach both the technical and professional skills needed to ensure long-term employment.

Per Scholas is currently funded through a diverse mixture of philanthropic (corporate, foundation, and individual) investments, earned income, and government funding. Early-stage capital investments, including seven-figure grants from Blue Meridian and Lever for Change, along with growing employer coinvestment in our training, have enabled us to triple our revenue over the past five years and have helped us garner additional funds. In 2023, Per Scholas received a $20M investment from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott—the largest, unrestricted funding in our organization’s history and an incredible recognition of our impact. 

• Philanthropic investments: Gifts from private foundations, corporate partners, and generous individuals accounted for about 75% of the revenue that Per Scholas recognized in 2023. 

• Government funding: Government funding amounted to 9% of revenue recognized in 2023. It is unusual for a workforce development organization not to be dependent on public support. We have often regarded this independence as an organizational strength: it insulates us from potential funding volatility, offers more freedom for program innovation, and reduces organizational overhead associated with managing government contracts. That said, we expect that federal government funding will contribute a more sizable share of revenue in coming years.

• Earned income: Earned income has grown nearly seven-fold over the past several years, accounting for 15% of 2023 revenues, and has the most potential for scale and sustainability.  Finding the most successful solutions to accelerate job attainment for our learners will enhance our value proposition for employer partners by accelerating our ability to meet employer hiring needs. This will directly impact our growing Enterprise Talent Solutions—an employer-facing service where Per Scholas staff connect alumni post-upskilling to employers who pay a fee to access more experienced talent through early interview access, talent matching services, and to provide post-hire advancement coaching for new hires. We know that employers value access to the talent pool Per Scholas provides, alongside our ability to source the best candidates for open roles and their companies, based on our firsthand knowledge of our graduates. If we can operate much more quickly and efficiently than we do today, we will position Per Scholas as a leading source of tech talent amongst a growing number of employers of all sizes, and generate revenues to be reinvested in scaling our training to more learners. Our proposed solution will not only improve outcomes for learners, but will also enhance sustainability through increased earned income, enabling us to achieve quantum improvements in scalability and sustainability. We envision that over time, earned revenue could provide a significant portion of Per Scholas’ annual operating revenue. This initiative has an important role in advancing that work.