Four years ago, Nichole Menard was a special education paraprofessional in Louisiana. A single mother (after the loss of her husband to cancer), earning a modest aide’s salary, working hard but with no clear path up.

Then Nichole found Reach.

Turning her job into her degree through our apprenticeship-based model, Nichole earned her BA, became a fifth-grade math and science teacher — and tripled her salary.

Nichole's life trajectory changed. Her children’s trajectory changed. Her community changed. (Watch the rest of the story in the video below.)

Now imagine this not as a one-off miracle, but as a system.

Reach University is already serving 3,300 working adults, nearly all in frontline roles. With the apprenticeship degree now proven in teaching — and soon in healthcare — we are ready to scale to 10,000 candidates across 20 states.

With that growth, we can prove what America urgently needs: an affordable, replicable, work-embedded college pathway that actually builds economic mobility.

To reach that tipping point, we need grow our Reach.

No Student Debt

The mission of Reach University is to turn jobs into degrees. We are proving that Liberal Arts education still matters, and that higher ed can be affordable, work-embedded, and high-quality — with zero student debt.

Here’s how anyone can help:

$2,000 covers a full year of Reach — a full year of college — after the candidate’s $75/month contribution and Pell.
$8,000 pays for an entire BA degree.
$40,000 lets five working adults transform their lives like Nichole — and step into careers that pay 3× what they earn today.
$80,000 supports ten.
$800,000 supports one hundred, and opens Reach in a new region of the country.

Every dollar doesn’t just educate one person — it helps build a national proof point strong enough to disrupt the entire higher-ed system toward affordability, work-integration, and real upward mobility.

If you want to help us tip the system, any contribution creates immediate impact, and changes lives.

The Rest of the Story

Read more: Stand Together Foundation, Philanthropy Roundtable, USA Today, Chronicle of Higher Education

Learn more: www.reach.edu

Contact: president@reach.edu

What if you could turn a job into a degree?

By Reach University

What if you could turn a job into a degree?

Help someone like Nichole reach their full potential.