One Million Degrees and One Ten Push Black Students into Social Mobility

One Million Degrees (OMD) has been changing the educational landscape for Chicago area community colleges for fifteen years. In their leadership webinar hosted on Thursday, they shared details of their continued success, and highlighted the success of their partner organization, One Ten.

Maurice Jones, CEO of One TenOne Ten was created by a group of executives purposely looking to close the opportunity gap for Black workers. One Ten’s mission is to hire one million Black Americans without four-year degrees into jobs with family sustaining wages. Many of those Black Americans will come from OMD, where over 90% of students identify as people of color, and over 50% are first-generation college goers. As OMD works to improve enrollment, persistence, and graduation rates, One Ten helps companies hire those students, completing community college’s push into economic and social mobility.

One Ten was founded in 2020 after the pandemic, the economic recession, and the killings of Ahmaud Arbury, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd.

“A group of CEOs came together to ask the question, what can the corporate community do to help the country on its journey to become a more perfect union?” said Maurice Jones, CEO of One Ten. The answer? Jobs that earn a family sustaining income.

But what was keeping Black and other people of color from those jobs? The CEOs realized there was a systemic barrier in place that limited access: the requirement to have a four-year degree.

“If you look at the country today, look at the jobs that pay $60,000 or above; on paper, 79% require a four-year degree as a point of entry. For jobs $40,000 and above, 71% require a four-year degree,” said Jones. “When you look at Black talent, aged 25 and up, 71% of them do not have a four-year degree. For Latinx, that number is 83%. Sixty-six percent (66%) of all talent does not have a four-year degree.”

One Ten works with companies to recruit hires without four-year degrees by looking for acquired skills and a drive for success. Once selected, those new hires are placed in an apprenticeship cohort, where they can learn, grow and, ideally, advance.