Helping every student reach their potential
PwC makes $320 million commitment to help close education and skills gap
When I consider PwC’s purpose to build trust in society and solve important problems, I can’t help but think about our country’s growing education and skills gap.
As the first person in my family to attend college, I am particularly passionate about tackling this problem. Kids from underserved and poor communities who don’t have access to good schools and education programs are increasingly being left behind. If we care about these kids, about our communities, and our shared future, we have to do something to address this.
For these kids to reach their potential, they need skills that will help them be successful in a world where technology is changing nearly every company and every job. In many cases, they also need help to widen their lens and understand all of the options and opportunities that are available to them. I know I wouldn’t be where I am today if my Babson College accounting professor Richard Bruno hadn’t seen something in me and helped me think about my potential for the future.
That’s why I’m excited to announce the launch of Access Your Potential™ — a five year, $320 million commitment by PwC to increase opportunity for students in underserved communities by closing the education and skills gap. Access Your Potential continues the work of our Earn Your Future™ program, which has to date helped bring financial literacy to 3.5 million students and educators.
In addition to our commitment and work on financial literacy, Access Your Potential will also include helping students gain the crucial technology skills they’ll need to succeed in college and work. According to new research from PwC and the Business-Higher Education Forum, by 2021, 69 percent of U.S. executives expect to choose job candidates with data science/analytics skills over those without. It’s clear that kids who don’t have tech skills are very much at risk of being left behind.
A big part of this commitment — just like Earn Your Future — is PwC people out in the community helping kids learn important skills and coaching students about potential careers and college choices. With 46,000 people in 80+ cities, we have a very wide reach and range of skills and experiences to share with students. We’ll mentor 10,000 students in underserved communities to help them choose the right college or career for them — an effort that we also hope will build more diversity in many professions (including ours).
We’ll also empower teachers and guidance counselors, with a goal of providing access to curriculum for 10 million students, and helping educators with tools to help prepare students to make sound financial choices and to be ready for tech-based careers.
One thing that I view as critical to addressing the growing education and skills gap is increasing the level of collaboration and teaming — so that we can learn from what others have already done and accelerate our collective impact. To that end, we’re partnering with FIRST Robotics and sponsoring the USA Science and Engineering Festival to provide young people with real world STEM experiences. We’re also working with Donors Choose and Coursera to reach students in the classroom and online.
We know these actions are not the complete solution to some very large and important issues, but we think we are on the right track and I know that our people will bring great excitement and caring to having a part in helping the younger generation imagine the kind of future they want, and provide the information needed to get there.
With Access Your Potential, we’re taking on a big issue student by student. By helping kids find their path and reach for their potential, we’re not only helping them be successful, we are also building the talented leaders that businesses and communities need — and that’s good for all of our futures.
