Colorado Pay It Forward Fund: Expanding the Ecosystem of Education and Training Pathways that Lead to Good Jobs

Transforming Workforce Development Systems

Tools Leveraged: Grantmaking | Impact Investing | New Ventures

Despite our state’s extraordinary prosperity, 1 in 4 Colorado families work jobs that do not allow them to earn a living wage. At the same time, Colorado businesses struggle to find the skilled talent they need. Unfortunately, our public education and workforce training systems are not keeping pace. Consider:

• -The State spends more than $650M on workforce training programs for adults each year, designed to help people get better jobs. Of the 300+ programs that receive funding, fewer than 10% can demonstrate wage gains for their participants.
• -Colorado’s public higher education institutions have awarded more than 74,000 Bachelors degrees, and 89,000 short-term credentials in the last ten years that did not lead to a $50,000 wage within 5 years. This amounts to $10B in combined tuition and scholarships on credentials that left students short of what they need to live in Colorado.  

When learners and workers complete training and education programs that don’t meaningfully improve economic opportunity, the consequence isn’t just unfilled jobs for employers and low wages for families, it’s student debt for thousands of Coloradans.

We simply must imagine a public system funded not on enrollment, but on results. This requires a new model that rewards career-relevant training and education opportunities, incentivizes participation for those facing barriers to employment, and shields families from crushing debt. 

The Colorado Pay It Forward Fund (COPIFF) is an attempt to model how such a public system could work. Managed by our partners at Social Finance and cofunded by a cohort of charitable foundations, COPIFF is a charitable revolving loan fund that offers interest-free,outcomes-based loans that are repaid only when learners and employers are successful. In this way, we remove barriers to the best programs, spend each dollar twice compared to traditional grants, and expand the ecosystem of pathways shown to lead to good jobs. 

The Pay It Forward Fund model is not only growing in Colorado, but is now being adopted to other states.