Braven

The mission of Braven is to empower promising, underrepresented young people with the skills, confidence, experiences, and networks necessary to transition from college to strong first jobs, which lead to meaningful careers and lives of impact. Our vision is that the next generation of leaders will emerge from everywhere and be as diverse as our future demands. Braven supports first-generation and low-income students from college to career by partnering with four year universities and employers to offer a two-part experience that begins with a credit-bearing college course followed by a post-course experience that lasts through graduation. Fellows emerge from Braven with the skills, experiences, confidence, and networks they need to land a strong first job and get on a path to economic freedom. We began implementing our unique program in the 2013-14 school year at San José State University, 2015-16 school year at Rutgers University–Newark, the 2018-19 school year at National Louis University in Chicago, and in January 2020 at Lehman College. To date, we’ve served over 2,000 students and have had strong results. Within six months of graduation, 71% of Fellows secured quality full-time jobs worthy of their bachelor’s degree or enrolled in graduate school compared to 49% of Black and Latinx college graduates from public universities. 73% of Braven college graduates have at least one internship during college, compared with 49% of first-generation seniors at large state universities, and 95% of our Fellows are persisting in or have graduated from college against a national backdrop of 6 of 10 students who start college graduating within 6 years. Additionally, 49% of Braven graduates are already outearning their parents in their first job out of college. By comparison, by age 30, Americans have a 50-50 shot of outearning their parents.