Project Overview
Since 2024, Third Sector has been supporting cross-sector partnerships across 7 states to design, develop, and implement Lifelong Learning Account (LiLA) pilots. These pilot programs will provide working people and jobseekers in their states with access to job training and ongoing educational opportunities to grow or build new careers.
Everyone, no matter their race, circumstance, or previous educational background, deserves to have the opportunity to build the career of their dreams that will help them take care of their families. More frequently than ever before in the United States, that requires ongoing training, education, or credentials.
Millions of learners are ready and willing to take on additional training or education or obtain a credential that will help them advance in or start a new career. However, too many of them lack adequate resources to do so and often face significant barriers, like transportation issues or a lack of affordable or accessible child care.
In addition, finding the right resources to help can be difficult. We have built the post-secondary system of education, training/upskilling, and credential obtainment in a different era and designed it around traditional higher education at colleges and universities, where tuition has become an untenable expense for many Americans. To make matters worse, we developed many programs, tools, and resources to help learners pay for continuing education and training that inadvertently created more complexity and confusion than we intended -- all of which exacerbates inequities that prevent people from accessing the resources that will help them to build careers of their dreams that will sustain them and their families.
To address this challenge, a few states and stakeholders have begun exploring developing Lifelong Learning Account (LiLA) programs to provide working people with greater access to education and training opportunities to grow, or build new, careers.
In 2024, Third Sector and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation selected three state cross-sector teams in Indiana, Michigan, and Tennessee for the National Lifelong Learning Account (LiLA) cohort. These teams designed innovative LiLA pilots for their states, comprising cross-sector partners like government, business, and community organizations. Through Third Sector-led workshops and coaching sessions, state teams gained a deeper understanding of their unique postsecondary funding landscapes and learner needs, crucial to designing and developing LiLA pilot implementation plans.
In 2025, Third Sector expanded the work advancing the adoption of LiLAs, working with a new cohort of states (Arkansas, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Michigan) to:
- Support cross-sector collaboration
- Build partnerships with EdTech and FinTech providers to expand access to upskilling funds
- Convene trainers, employers, and public/private leaders to apply the SIMPLE framework
- Share best practices that drive scale and sustainability
- Drive financial empowerment
- Expand access to funding options that unlock higher wages
- Connect adult learners with wraparound supports needed to succeed
- Accelerate pathways to success
- Increase engagement with high-quality training programs
- Align funding with industry-recognized, stackable credentials
Third Sector is also continuing to collaborate with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, building on shared efforts to elevate the national relevance of LiLAs through coordinated program design and policy alignment.
At the end of this project, Third Sector will have led a multi-workstream effort that provided the following:
- Technical assistance ot accelerate ongoing implementation in previously engaged states of Tennessee and Michigan.
- Design and launch new LiLA pilots through the LiLA Design Lab in CA, MI, AK, MA, IL
- Development of field-informed stackable credentials, credential quality assessment, and apprenticeship initiatives, to help learners access high-value pathways that lead to greater economic mobility.
- Implementation-informed policy research and recommendations, with a focus on expanding access and flexibility
Post Secondary Opportunity
| Project Name | Scope | Location | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supporting Colorado to Implement New Program Providing Wraparound Support to Adult Learners | State | CO | Closed |
| As an outgrowth of its work with four states during the first PASS cohort, Third Sector supported the Colorado Opportunity Scholarship Initiative (COSI) by implementing the Postsecondary Grant Redesign, which revamps its financial and wraparound support grants into one joint program aimed at ensuring all students are equipped to succeed in their post-secondary education. Setting up a joint program was a key recommendation coming out of the original PASS cohort work. | |||
| Cuyahoga County National Guard Scholars PFS | County | OH | Closed |
| Third Sector worked with the Ohio Department of Higher Education (ODHE) and Cuyahoga County's Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to improve enrollment, persistence, and completion outcomes for Ohio National Guard Scholarship Program (ONGSP) recipients. Cuyahoga's DHHS, the first county in the nation to launch a PFS project in 2015, led program and contract design efforts with Third Sector and InsideTrack, a leading national organization that supports learners seeking higher education. Together they tailored a coaching and skill-building program for the National Guard that strives to eliminate racial disparities between White students and students of color. The county launched the PFS contract in December 2022. | |||
