Since 2019, City Colleges of Chicago has partnered with Chicago Public Schools to implement the Chicago Roadmap for College Success, an effort to expand early college opportunities for students while implementing model pathways in high-wage, high-growth industries and ramping up student career exploration. According to the University of Chicago’s To&Through Project, 27% of Chicago Public Schools’ freshmen will go on to earn a college credential by the time they’re about 25 years old. To help increase the postsecondary attainment rate, City Colleges of Chicago seeks to develop clear pathways that begin with early college in high school, continue through associate degree completion, and then support transfer to a bachelor’s degree program at a four-year college or university.
Our Role
In fall 2023, EdSystems began work with Chicago Public Schools and City Colleges of Chicago to develop five extended model pathways starting from early college through associate and bachelor degree completion for the following industry sectors: health sciences, information technology, advanced manufacturing, IT, and construction.
EdSystems will analyze complete community college and university courses, as well as labor market research, for the following potential majors:
- Allied Health
- Applied Cybersecurity & Information Technology
- Biological Sciences
- Business Administration
- Computer Science & Design
- Industrial Management
- Social Work
Using the course analyses, we will develop extended pathways maps that allow City Colleges of Chicago to target specific university majors and programs for strategic agreements that will extend the current work with Chicago Public Schools on Model Pathways.
