Human Capital Strategy

According to a recent Georgetown University study, 64 percent of jobs in Illinois in 2018 will require a post secondary degree. However, only 35 percent of Chicago residents have attained a college degree. If we are to develop Chicago's human capital to meet 21st century job demands, we must focus on getting our residents the skills and credentials they need to be competitive in the labor market.

Based on the direction of an expert Advisory Group, CWIC is developing a Human Capital Strategy targeting two groups:

Back to College: Helping individuals, who have earned some college credit, but no degree, return to college to complete their degree.
Literacy to Work: Promoting programs that blend best practices in literacy and workforce training, in order to help individuals get on the career ladder and start moving upward.

Complete the Degree

A nationwide goal

Recognizing the important role that education plays in the American economy, this year President Obama issued a call for the U.S. to reclaim its former position as the world leader in college attainment.

This feat will require our post secondary institutions to produce an additional 5 million college graduates by 2020.

Chicago will rise to the challenge

For Chicago to play its part in meeting this nationwide goal, our city must significantly increase its ability to award degrees beyond its current output over the next ten years.

CWIC is launching a "Complete the Degree" initiative that will:

Raise citywide awareness of educational attainment as the key factor for economic improvement and stability
Reach out to the 300,000 adult Chicagoans with "some college"
Invest resources to target this group and facilitate their return to — and graduation from — college, providing significant social and economic returns to the city
Create Support Centers that provide counseling and assistance to "comebackers"
Develop partnerships with colleges that create pathways for students to graduate, including accepting transfer credits, providing support services and allowing for flexible scheduling

Literacy & workforce development

Students studying

Identifying barriers

For the 23 percent of Chicagoans who are high school dropouts, and for many more who hold diplomas, low literacy is the primary hurdle to further education, job stability and career advancement.

Because the majority of job training programs require that clients perform at the 9th grade level, frontline staff frequently struggle with how to serve clients who lack the basic skills to take advantage of these programs.

There is a growing consensus about the need to reform our adult education and workforce development systems to better enable low-skilled adults to pursue further education and ultimately family-sustaining employment.

A new initiative

To that end, CWIC is launching a Literacy and Workforce Development initiative as part of its Human Capital Strategy.

This initiative will represent a coordinated effort across the city to elevate the conversation about literacy development as a workforce development issue, to study promising models and to reward, grow and support organizations that integrate literacy education and workforce training.