Over the past ten years, The Corps Network has designed and managed national program initiatives that incrementally built a more effective, more sophisticated Corps program model. With Corps to Career in the late 1990s, The Corps Network incorporated effective practices in workforce development. Civic Justice Corps, started in 2006, added effective practices in engaging formerly incarcerated and court-involved youth. The new 2008-2009 Corps in New Orleans further innovate the CJC model by focusing on workforce paths into the green economy.

The most challenging element is how disconnected youth can make the transition into and through post-secondary education, and some successful strategies exist for enabling Corpsmembers to make that transition. Different Corps use different strategies. Specific links to post-secondary education through a combination of service and course work and credentials help to make the transition. In addition, the support of the Corps, sometimes in tangible ways like providing child care or transportation, sometimes in intangibles like setting expectations, creates a network that further fuels the acquisition of post-secondary credentials and education.

Education makes a difference. Young adults ages 17 to 24 with less than a high school diploma are three times as likely to be unemployed, underemployed, or working for very low wages than those with a college degree. Average annual earnings of drop-outs are under $19,000, while workers with some college earn over $31,000, and those completing the undergraduate degree earn over $45,000.

Post-Secondary attainment becomes an increasingly important outcome. Because of the above trends, and because of the Corps' historical commitment to and success helping disconnected youth, The Corps Network believes that the pursuit of post-secondary credentials can-and must-become a significant organizing principle for Corps programming and institutional growth.

AmeriCorps Education Awards Gain Greater Flexibility. Thanks to the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, Corpsmembers earning Education Awards through their AmeriCorps programs now have even more access to opportunity. The law raised the Award amount to be equal to Pell Grants, the Award is now transferable (so that parents can pass their Education Award onto children and grandchildren), and the lifetime term limit has been extended from two terms of any length to the equivalent of two full-time terms.