COOP Careers

COOP’s fellowship explicitly targets graduates from low-income families who are already disconnected from career-track employment. In 2025, over 90% of fellows were Pell-eligible and 85% were the first in their family to graduate from college. At entry, roughly half were unemployed and half were underemployed, earning approximately $15,000 annually on average. Many graduated from regional public universities, worked throughout college, transferred from community colleges, and lacked access to the professional networks and social capital that drive early-career mobility.

Through the generosity of our supporters and the commitment of our staff, the results have been transformative: COOP has supported more than 10,000 recent grads in five major metropolitan regions (New York City, the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Miami), who have secured college-level employment in upwardly mobile careers at 2.3x the rate of their underemployed peers.