College has always been a goal for Charletta Thomas. Now 58, she currently supervises training for a 44-restaurant chain in southern Louisiana. But after 27 years at a company with education benefits—benefits Thomas pitches to other employees—she still hadn’t taken advantage of them herself.

Employees like Thomas often struggle to use employer-based college benefits as they are most commonly offered. Many times, adult workers can’t balance education with their family commitments. Crucially, many programs require workers to front costs they can’t cover or direct them toward educational tracks that don’t credibly promise a pay bump. Experts say more flexible options could help. 

Photo: Di’Amond Moore

Students and teachers everywhere know that the fallout from this strange, COVID-fueled school year will complicate the path through high school and ultimately college—a path that is already too precarious for many students in Detroit. Nearly half of high school graduates from the city’s main district must take remedial courses if they attend college. 

The Detroit Achievement Academy and Grand Valley State University want to change that trajectory—and they're taking a series of unusual steps to make it happen. 

Kishore Khandavalli is CEO of a Dallas-based custom software maker. He recently opened a satellite office in India for employees, including a manager who left the United States after becoming fed up with the immigration system. Sooner or later, he says, immigrant tech workers decide, “I don’t have to be treated like a third-rate citizen. What am I doing here?”

Their answer is increasingly to leave. And that’s a growing challenge for the U.S. tech industry, the broader economy, and an education system that has failed to turn out enough Americans with the science skills employers need.