InStride Endorses Upskilling and Retraining Assistance Act
InStride, provider of strategic enterprise educationTM, recently announced its endorsement of and participation within the recently-introduced U.S. Upskilling and Retraining Assistance Act. The company looks to work alongside fellow American corporations and policy-makers in ensuring that employers have the tools they need to hire and retrain workers impacted by the COVID-19 (coronavirus) outbreak and enable job-seekers to achieve greater employability.
The bipartisan Upskilling and Retraining Assistance Act seeks to, in-part, increase the amount of tax-free educational assistance that employees in workforce development programs can receive from their employers, further enhanced to cover expenses for the caliber of tools and technology required for contemporary educational initiatives. From its introduction, the Act has garnered continued, significant momentum and support; its potential to unlock the ability for those seeking employment or better-paying jobs to return with greater efficacy to the workforce has attained endorsements in short order from the Coalition to Preserve Employer-Provided Education Assistance, Jobs for the Future (JFF), the Business Roundtable (BRT), the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the American Council on Education (ACE), the National Association of Independent Colleges & Universities (NAICU), the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), the Presidents Forum and the National Association of College and University Business Officers, as but examples.
InStride provides delivery of employee education, offering degrees, critical skills online training and short-form credentials customized to each labor market. The organization’s core set of short-form credential training focuses on the most in-demand sectors, including information technology, customer service, logistics/supply chain, healthcare and more. Along with more than 400 higher education degrees offered through a high-quality academic network , InStride also offers a broader range of specific training pathways tied to critical skills and industry-recognized credentials, operational and advanced credentials, each available through a turnkey, white-label, and easy-to-use technology platform.
The 75th Secretary of the United States Navy and Chair of InStride’s Board of Directors, Ray Mabus, stated:
“The COVID-19 pandemic has afflicted millions of Americans, dramatically altering the workforce. To ensure that we succeed in a 2020 economy and beyond, corporations across the country are looking to play a greater role in workforce development. The Upskilling and Retraining Assistance Act has enabled a terrific opportunity for those corporations to improve cross-sector access to necessary educational resources while reducing student-associated debt.
InStride’s support for the U.S. Upskilling and Retraining Assistance Act includes administering training to those seeking better employment, guiding participants to the right set of training content in line with re-emerging job market, and partnering with leading organizations to deliver strategic workforce training at a community and statewide scale. InStride’s evidence-backed programs offer a full range of support for every stage of a learner’s journey while bridging the gap between employers’ contemporary needs and employees’ life-changing skills-training opportunities, driving job-seekers and employers to the kind of mutual, long-term success that the Upskilling and Retraining Assistance Act emblematizes.”
Learn more about the Instride Commitment and COVID-19 Response here.