The Problem The Problem The Problem The Problem
This country’s approach to learning and work was built for a bygone era. It still assumes that most people make a linear journey through life: graduate from high school and, perhaps, college, get a job, raise a family, and retire.
Nowadays, many people change career paths multiple times throughout their lives. Their professional interests may shift. Job sites shutter. New career opportunities emerge. New technologies upend old ways of working, making some skills and job tasks obsolete. Family responsibilities require a rebalancing of priorities and result in career detours.
Yet, as they try to navigate these changing circumstances, people are encountering education and workforce systems that are too rigid, fragmented, and cumbersome to help them move on to new stages of their lives, learn new skills, and discover new careers. Antiquated systems and policies lay all the burdens, risks, and opportunity costs on workers and learners themselves—and often leave them facing dead ends instead of pursuing new opportunities for economic advancement.
We can put an end to these dead ends at school, at work, and in life.
According to JFF's June 2024 survey, 81% of registered voters—including 89% of Democrats, 78% of Republicans, and 75% of Independents—affirm the core tenet of No Dead Ends: Everyone should get the support they need to explore their learning and work options and make decisions that best match their goals and needs.
People deserve an education and workforce system that provides boundless opportunities to advance economically.
About No Dead Ends
Our Vision Our Vision Our Vision Our Vision
Imagine learning and work environments that place:
No limits on the aspirations of learners and workers.
No artificial endpoints on career pathways.
No impossible choices between pursuing opportunities to advance one’s career and taking care of family responsibilities.
No harmful risks when making decisions to change directions in one’s work and learning journey.
This vision requires that we re-engineer the nation’s education and workforce systems to promote economic advancement, with the goal of making all high-quality options for learning and work accessible, discoverable, and achievable in the following ways:
Accessible: All options for learning and work are available through permeable entry points, regardless of where people are along their learning and work journeys.
Discoverable: Everyone can explore their learning and work options and make decisions that best match their goals and needs.
Achievable: All options for learning and work are attainable, no matter the circumstances and challenges people encounter.
This future is within our reach if we, as a nation, pursue bold policy and systems change.
The Latest The Latest The Latest The
Research from Jobs for the Future finds growing economic pessimism and sharp divides across age, gender, and political affiliation — but also strong bipartisan support for skillsforward education and workforce policies.
One of JFF’s top legislative priorities is expanding Pell Grant eligibility to include shorter-term postsecondary education and training programs that lead to industry-recognized credentials. Urge your members of Congress to vote in favor of Workforce Pell.
in a New Year
JFF urges the 119th Congress to prioritize six key policy actions in 2025 to ensure that U.S. workers and learners face ‘no dead ends’ on the road to economic advancement.
In this memo to the Trump Administration, JFF breaks down our federal education and workforce policy recommendations for the incoming president and presents a unifying, practical, bipartisan plan to eliminate the dead ends that millions of people face every day at school, at work, and in their lives.
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