This guide offers practical strategies and tools for addressing the need to provide large numbers of working-age adults with education and training that will give them access to opportunities for social mobility and enable them to secure jobs that pay sufficient wages to support a family.

The guide describes what states can do to break down barriers that stand in the way of success for underprepared adult students; lays out case studies of Louisiana, Ohio and Washington that have changed state policy to encourage community colleges to better serve underprepared adults; provides strategies and tools for states to implement a comprehensive strategy to cultivate state policies that will support the success of underprepared adults; and presents guidelines on getting started for stakeholders within and outside state government.

This guide is based on lessons from the Ford Foundation–funded Community College Bridges to Opportunity initiative, a multiyear effort designed to bring about changes in state policy that improve education and employment outcomes for educationally and economically disadvantaged adults.