Building a Pathway to Success for All Students–With or Without a College Degree

“The very system I was preparing my students for was failing them.”

When Maya Bhattacharjee-Marcantonio started her first teaching job on Marcy Avenue in New York, she felt driven to get her students to and through college. After all, she’d witnessed the power of higher education first-hand while being raised by parents who had immigrated from Calcutta.

“My entire childhood was watching both my parents navigate building lives for themselves and their families back home in India, with college as the vehicle,” she said.

Despite a similar emphasis on college at the school where she taught, Maya quickly saw that the journey wasn’t so simple. Many students who got a coveted acceptance letter found that they couldn’t financially sustain college for more than a year or two. Others were overwhelmed by student loan debt or struggled at schools that lacked the resources to provide adequate support for first-generation students.

Maya faced a crushing realization: “The very system that I was preparing a lot of my students for was actually failing many of them.”

Building a pathway for the “untapped middle”

Maya’s fellow teacher Reuben Ogbonna shared her concern for students in what they called the “untapped middle.” These were young people with intellectual curiosity, enormous potential, and a desire to build a rewarding career–but who weren’t getting into the top schools in the nation, lacked the financial resources to sustain college, or were concerned by the growing possibility that a degree may not translate into a job.

Maya and Reuben agreed: it shouldn’t feel so impossible for bright young people to find a path into the careers they deserved.

“College is a great pathway for many, but it isn’t a pathway that is serving all,” Maya said. “[We need] an alternative to college for students who’ve been failed by that system.”

One intensive year, many open doors

Maya and Reuben founded the Marcy Lab School with a clear vision: a tuition-free college alternative that would equip its graduates to step into a career in the tech sector, enabling them to build wealth for themselves and their families.

The Marcy Lab School’s intensive, one-year program gives students highly sought-after skills in software engineering or data analytics through a project-based curriculum. Students benefit from wraparound support, an encouraging community, and the college experience of working and learning alongside like-minded peers.

Marcy Lab students represent the “untapped middle” that Maya wanted to reach. About 90% of Marcy Lab students come from immigrant or first-generation backgrounds, and a little over half have gone to college for one or two years.

When the school’s founding class of fellows graduated, their average starting salary was $103,000. Today, graduates regularly earn six figures and go onto rewarding careers in the tech sector.

An investment to amplify impact

In 2022, New Profit invested in Marcy Lab as part of our first Economic Mobility Catalyze cohort. Marcy Lab’s focus on alternative pathways to gainful employment directly aligned with New Profit’s aim to invest in innovative organizations across the country that are building solutions to address the social drivers of economic opportunity, pathways to income generation, and financial health and wellbeing.

In 2024, New Profit invested in Marcy Lab again, this time as part of our Build portfolio. In addition to $1.5M in unrestricted funding over four years, the investment was coupled with strategic advisory support from New Profit Deal Partner, Abby Marquand, to help them deepen their impact, broaden their scale, and drive systems-level change.

Changing the field

Scaling this alternative model of higher education has come with its challenges. In their time with New Profit, Marcy Lab School leaders have navigated a tech recession, blazed new trails with industry employers through partnerships, and built out a sustainable funding model. Working with Abby Marquand paired them with “a champion who believed in them from the beginning.”

“It has been so rewarding to work with the Marcy Lab School at an exciting inflection point for them,” said Abby. “The organization’s culture and their commitment to Fellows have been unwavering, but now they’re building new systems and structures within the organization that will carry this work into the future. I’m so honored to be a part of it.”

“Being in New Profit’s portfolio, even as we were building, was really, really transformational and powerful for both of us in our leadership and development,” said Maya, noting the importance of Abby’s coaching and mentorship for both her and Reuben, as well as Abby’s deep familiarity with their work. “[New Profit] is the only organization, the only foundation that says … we care so much about your organization that they’re going to sit on your board,” Maya said. The result has been “game-changing.”

Pay it forward

Marcy Lab’s work goes beyond equipping their graduates with the skills they need; the organization builds partnerships with employers like Microsoft and JPMorgan Chase, advocating for tech leaders to interview non-degreed job candidates. Once that door is open to them, Marcy Lab’s graduates shine. Often, “[they’re] totally blowing it out of the park compared to their peers coming from four-year universities,” said Maya.

To create the pathways to wealth and professional achievement that young people deserve, employers and educators alike will need to broaden their understanding of what experiences can best prepare future employees. As graduating fellows go on to thrive in the tech sector, that pathway is established just a little bit more.

“We tell our fellows, we don’t ask them to pay anything,” said Maya. “What we ask them to do is pay it forward.” 

Looking ahead

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