Entrepreneurial-minded college and university leaders are overhauling deeply ingrained systems and frameworks to thrive in higher education’s next chapter. Amid this inflection point, entrepreneurs outside of the sector have begun offering alternative outlets to postsecondary education. The latest shining example is Marcy Lab School.
The Brooklyn-based nonprofit connects Black, Hispanic and other minority groups with emerging careers in tech and computer science through its array of short-term credentials, which are developed in partnership with regional employers.
In the first three years Marcy Lab School opened (in 2019), 90% of its 200 graduates landed STEM jobs, making $105,000 per year on average, USA Today reports.
In this Q&A interview, University Business sat down with Maya Bhattacharjee-Marcantonio, Marcy’s chief program officer and co-founder, to discuss what disruptors in the postsecondary sphere can teach our most traditional institutions.
This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity. Note: Marcy Lab School refers to its “students” as “fellows.”
How did the current higher ed landscape inspire The Marcy Lab School?
My co-founder Reuben and I both came from leadership positions in middle and high schools in the New York City area that predominantly serve Black and brown students. We repeatedly saw some of our most aspirational and inspirational students pursue a college path, only to find that the systemic barriers they faced made them feel that college simply wasn’t for them. We know how wrong that is.
Every young person deserves access to high-quality post-high school choices to ensure they can reach their full potential, pursue lifelong upward mobility, and create generational wealth for themselves and their families. It’s the need for those choices that originally inspired us to build Marcy, and it continues to inspire us every day as we evolve to best meet the needs of our community.
How do you all differentiate yourself from legacy higher ed providers?
There are three major differences.
First, our program is just one year long. We believe that this year, we can combine the best of the liberal arts experience with high-quality technical training to ensure our students have the breadth and depth to be competitive with—or surpass—their peers who attend four-year colleges or universities. For example, a typical day for our fellows might include a technical seminar on web design or JavaScript, but it will also include leadership courses where fellows read texts on race, class, gender, and politics.
Second, our fellows pay nothing to attend The Marcy Lab School. Instead, we ask that once they’ve graduated, they pay it forward by mentoring and supporting future generations in our community. We are grateful to our many philanthropic partners for allowing us to have a model like this.
Third, we place a strong emphasis on community and holistic development, ensuring that fellows are not only equipped with technical skills but also with the interpersonal and leadership abilities necessary to navigate and thrive in professional environments.
What can higher education learn from your organization?
Higher education has traditionally been built on a degree-centric approach, which makes sense—it has existed for a long time as a monolith aligned with traditional hiring models and workforce needs. We set out to build an alternative to higher education for those our higher education system was not serving, and we have learned so much along the way.
The Marcy Lab School offers a case study of what higher education could look like if institutions focused on job outcomes and career readiness rather than just the credentials gained through the process. This shift could happen by listening more closely to students about what they view as barriers to their success. Colleges can begin offering relevant, career-aligned coursework and prioritize strong mentorship programs.
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In addition to the financial struggles that come with taking on college, we saw that so many of our students who weren’t being served by our higher education system also weren’t able to find a sense of community and support. At Marcy, we’ve prioritized cultivating an inclusive and deeply connected community, and it has become the heartbeat of our learning spaces.
Centering our students on the power of the collective versus a competitive and individualistic mindset could be bred in our higher education system.
Do you take inspiration from any current leaders in the higher ed space who are moving the needle on improving STEM access to underrepresented learners?
I draw inspiration from lots of amazing, awe-inspiring leaders and innovators in the space, but two I would want to call out are Ben Nelson, founder and CEO of the Minerva Project, and Aimée Eubanks Davis, founder and CEO of Braven.
Ben’s commitment to making an Ivy League technical education for the modern-day exemplifies the kind of innovative out-of-the-box thinking we need more of in this world. As a leader—and as a female founder of color—Aimée inspires me every day with her work at Braven. She has been able to build an organization that has scaled and had a lot of impact in a short period of time, which is not easy to do. There are many more incredible, inspirational leaders in the space that I wish we had more time to name, but Ben and Aimée are the kind of people who excite me when I think about what the future holds.
