STARs are people who are Skilled Through Alternative Routes. A new campaign – Tear the Paper Ceiling – spearheaded by Opportunity@Work and the Ad Council encourages companies to overlook the requirement for a college degree and consider this capable talent pool.

Phil Weinberg, president and CEO at STRIVE, says eliminating the requirement for a four-degree is a win-win in the war for talent.

He explains, “There are so many men and women who are talented and motivated and often don’t have access to the social capital, the networks, the pathways to accomplish their career objectives.”

“What we do at STRIVE is we partner with communities to identify what are those engines of economic growth. We end up partnering in parts of the economy where there are great opportunities to build a middle wage, middle class career – health care logistics, construction, where there is a great demand for skills, but not always the need to have the educational degrees and credentials.”

Weinberg continues, “We identify those talented individuals. We partner with employers and we help to build the training pathway to ensure that we’re connecting our most talented assets in our communities to those economic opportunities.”

Learn more about The Paper Ceiling.
Learn more about Opportunity@Work.
Learn more about the Ad Council.
Learn more about STRIVE.