The Last Mile Education Fund offers a disruptive approach to increasing social mobility and addressing the diversity and talent crises in tech and engineering disciplines. While efforts to grow the talent pipeline in these high-demand fields are making progress, still just 11% of students from the lowest income quartile earn a degree within 6 years of starting and 56% of upper-level college students report experiencing basic needs insecurity. Last Mile bridges this gap by investing in striving low-income students within sight of a technical degree. Using an abundance mindset, Last Mile's just-in-time funding and connections to social support resources enable low-income students to persist over the last mile to graduation and into a career - ultimately creating a virtuous circle of investment, engagement, and reinvestment that sustains the fund long term.
Last Mile Education Fund grants are awarded through an abundance approach – with no GPA requirements or expectation of students to “perform their poverty” to qualify. We believe that every low-income student who has made significant progress towards a technical degree is worthy of investment – in fact, society cannot afford for a single one of these striving students to fail. On average, a college graduate with a degree in technology or engineering will earn $43,475 more per year than those with some college but no degree. We have calculated that investing in just 23,000 of these students over the next 10 years will generate $2.15 Billion in increased wages as well as contribute to the diversity of the tech workforce.
Since 2020, Last Mile has awarded over 2500 grants totaling $2.5M to support degree completion for low-income underrepresented students aimed at careers in tech. Last Mile grantees to date have been 37% Black, 23% Hispanic, 18% Asian, 12% White and 2% Native American. Seventy-one percent (71%) of Last Mile grantees identify as women or non-binary. As of December 2022, 625 Last Mile grantees have graduated.
