Over 50 million Americans—roughly 44% of all workers—earn low hourly wages, according to the Brookings Institute. These wages average out to an annual salary of around $24,000. Low wages, inflation, and rising housing prices leave many workers struggling to make ends meet.
But one group of low-wage graduates has seen their salaries double within three months post-graduation—and credit goes to Merit America.
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Students of this nonprofit workforce development program saw an average salary increase of $22,500 within three to five months post-graduation, according to a University of Virginia analysis of the program’s first 3,000 graduates released Tuesday.
Merit America seeks to build an affordable way for working adults to enter tech careers through online skills training and job placement coaching. The program is an example of a trade-specific education alternative to traditional two- or four-year degrees, aligning with the growing trend of employers dropping degree requirements for certain positions.
Addressing a ‘market failure’
Co-founders and co-CEOs Rebecca Taber Staehelin and Connor Diemand-Yauman both previously worked as leaders at Coursera, an online learning platform, but founded Merit America to emphasize the importance of translating training into a career through support and flexibility.
“Content is a really important piece of the puzzle, but content alone will not help a single mother, who’s working in a grocery store by day, driving Uber by night, move into a job at JPMorgan Chase,” Staehelin tells Fortune.
Merit America is trying to address a “market failure,” Diemand-Yauman says, by serving the millions of working adults with the skills and talents to succeed but have been stuck in low-wage work by a system stacked against them. How stacked? According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, just over one million workers make at or below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
“Our goal is to get them on the first rung of an upwardly mobile career ladder where they can continue working their way up over time,” Staehelin says. “And we’re really excited that the data validates that’s exactly what’s happening.”
A pathway to affordable tech skills
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, software developers and data scientists are two careers with job outlooks growing faster than the U.S. average. With programs in Java development, data analytics, and IT support, Merit America hopes to help fill the expanding tech market by equipping students with in-demand skills.
To do this, Merit guides students through certificate programs offered by Google, edX, or Coursera, offering additional support for grads through career development and job-placement assistance.
Merit’s programs range from 13 to 21 weeks and cost a maximum of $8,400—roughly $1,000 less than the average annual tuition and fees for public four-year institutions. Low-cost training also helps the program stand out against traditional tech bootcamps, Diemand-Yauman says.
For Merit students, there’s no payment required upfront, and optional 0% loans don’t require repayment until graduates secure a job that pays at least $40,000.
Learn more: This fintech company will pay off student loans for employees.
Programs are also part-time and remote, giving students time to learn programming, web design, or data visualization skills while keeping a day job or taking care of family.
“We have created a new pathway to the middle class and beyond for people stuck in low-wage work, where they’re seeing extraordinary wage gains that are growing over time after their experience,” Staehelin says. This approach aligns with the growing emphasis on skills-first hiring practices many companies adopt.
The new study helps set a standard of transparency for programs like Merit America, Staehelin says and shows that their skills training can deliver salary results for students on a large scale.
A 40k salary guarantee
Merit students get a bit more for their money than at many other colleges or bootcamps: a salary guarantee. If qualifying graduates cannot secure a job that pays at least $40,000 within two years, they could be eligible for a full refund or loan cancellation.
“We don’t keep up our end of the bargain, and folks don’t get a job that surpasses that threshold, they pay us nothing,” Diemand-Yauman tells Fortune.
So far, Merit’s kept its promise, largely thanks to students graduating with skills that make them strong candidates for businesses of all sizes and across multiple industries.
Merit America also has institutional partnerships with corporations like JPMorgan Chase and Amazon and groups like OneTen to connect graduates with potential employers.
Proof of success is in the numbers. Among Merit’s first 3,000 graduates, the average salary was $62,000 or more by two years post-program, with alums holding positions at companies like Accenture, Alarm.com, and Walmart.
“Our primary goal—everything that we do—is focused on job placement,” says Diemand-Yauman. “So all the training, all the coaching, all of our partnerships, are oriented toward how do we get our learners into transformative, new careers.”
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