Grants

JP Morgan Chase Awards $20 Million to 10 States to Build Career and Tech Education Systems

• By Richard Chang
• 01/12/17

Banking behemoth JP Morgan Chase & Co. has awarded $20 million in grants to 10 states to build comprehensive career and technical education (CTE) systems in collaboration with industries in their states, Education Week has reported.

The grants, announced this week, are part of New Skills for Youth, a $75 million JP Morgan Chase initiative aimed at improving career and tech ed programs. The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and Advance CTE are collaborating with JP Morgan Chase to evaluate states’ plans and support them as they move forward.

The winning states are Delaware, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Wisconsin.

A $35 million piece of the $75 million initiative comes in the form of grants to states, which have applied to work on their own CTE systems, Education Week reported. Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia won $2.5 million in planning grants last spring, and now 10 of those states have each won $2 million, three-year grants to build on the proposals they made in the earlier round of competition.

Chris Minnich, the executive director of CCSSO, said in a conference call with reporters that the grants are part of a major project undertaken by more than 40 states to modernize career education so that every student can graduate from high school well prepared to pursue a career. The state chiefs recognize that they are not turning out enough graduates who are ready to work in the jobs of today’s economy — skilled jobs that require more than a high school diploma, Minnich said.

“This is significant work we hope will close the skills gap that has existed in our country,” he said.

The 10 winning states came up with “comprehensive and aggressive” plans to rework their CTE systems, according to Minnich. Those systems will offer students many “quality options,” including professional certificates that lead to well-paying jobs, and to two-year and four-year college programs.