07/15/26
Ensuring Strong Starts: Next Prep’s First Cohort Graduates With Clearer Plans and Real Pathways
Next Prep’s first graduating cohort is helping to redefine career-connected learning and the role of high school. Fifty-six students who spent at least two years in the program are heading off this fall with real next steps, from registered apprenticeships to four-year scholarships to industry credentials, and their results just helped St. Louis land an $8 million Bloomberg Philanthropies investment to take the model further.
Nearly a third of the class are headed to four-year colleges this fall, several on full scholarships, including one graduate bound for WashU. Others are entering registered apprenticeships in skilled trades and health care, the kind of hands-on placements Next Prep was built to open doors to, with employer partners like SSM Health, Careerways, Natoli, and FSI already putting graduates to work.
That same rigor is showing up in how college-bound seniors choose a major. Next Prep pushes students to apply the same lens it uses to vet skilled-trades pathways, real labor demand, wage trajectories, and how predictably a credential or degree converts into a job before locking in a field of study. As the economy shifts under an entire generation, fewer students are picking a major on interest alone, and more are heading to campus with a clear-eyed bet on work that will still be there and still pay four years from now.
Students also left high school with credentials that can accelerate their next steps. The graduating class earned 20 industry-recognized certifications, including Patient Care Technician, Pharmacy Tech, OSHA 10, and NC3 Tape and Rule certifications. Five students will continue SSM Health apprenticeships after graduation while earning associate degrees and working as pharmacy techs, radiology techs, or nurse aides. Next Prep also supported five students, including three from Kairos and two from Gateway Science Academy, in securing full-time Registered Apprenticeship offers in advanced manufacturing.
The results are part of a larger pattern. In the 2025–26 school year, Next Prep served 950 students across its partner schools. Among 10th graders, 84% said they believe Next Prep support will help their careers. Seventeen juniors participated in a Skilled Trades and Manufacturing Intensive, with 10 earning one or more certifications, and 60% of 11th graders interested in skilled trades earned an industry-recognized credential. Local partners have also committed 170 Registered Apprenticeship spots across 21 career pathways, creating a stronger foundation for future cohorts.
A Four-Year Investment in What Comes Next
Over the past four years, The Opportunity Trust has invested in Next Prep to build a new model for career-connected learning, bringing together curriculum, employer relationships, career exposure, advising, and work-based learning beginning in ninth grade and designed to help students move from career exploration to real postsecondary opportunities. Long-time newsletter readers may remember Next Prep’s launch in our Summer 2024 issue and its growing national attention in our Fall 2025 issue; this graduating cohort is the payoff those earlier updates were building toward. “One thing we really learned is how critical it is to pair conceptual learning with sticky experiences,” said Riley Foster, Next Prep program director. “That’s why we’re leaning so heavily into apprenticeships.”
The success of Next Prep did more than change outcomes for one graduating class. It positioned St. Louis nationally as one of just nine regions selected for Bloomberg Philanthropies’ national skilled trades initiative. As part of that selection, The Opportunity Trust will receive an $8 million investment over three years to expand Next Prep, backed by a coalition of more than 40 employers, labor organizations, and schools. The expansion launches this fall with 40 students and is projected to grow to 100 students annually by 2029. It’s the second Bloomberg Philanthropies investment in an Opportunity Trust initiative in as many years, following its $10 million commitment to Believe St. Louis Academy last fall.
It’s not the only sign the model is traveling beyond St. Louis. The Roberts Family Foundation and Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation have backed a similar career-connected cohort in the San Francisco Bay Area through its Ignite Fund, evidence that what Next Prep pioneered here is becoming a template other regions are borrowing rather than building from scratch, and that The Opportunity Trust is increasingly shaping what this work looks like nationally, not just locally.
Two Students, Two Strong Pathways
“I wish Next Prep was at every school,” said Next Prep graduate Monika McDuffie. “We’re often not given opportunities to practice these skills until it’s too late or the real thing is happening.”
For McDuffie, Next Prep clarified a different path. This fall, she will attend WashU on a full scholarship and study film after four years of career visits, interview simulations, soft skills practice, and postsecondary planning. One visit to a news station helped connect her interests to a future field of study.
“Seeing the process of media being created really stuck with me,” McDuffie said. “Now, that’s what I’m studying in college.”
Jay Hilbert was not sure what to think when he learned he would be taking Next Prep as a required class at Kairos Academies.
“At first, I thought it was kind of odd,” he said. “I didn’t realize you might need a class to teach you about life after high school.”
Four years later, Hilbert is a high school graduate, OSHA 10 certified, measurement certified, and working full-time as a Registered Apprentice at FSI, an advanced manufacturing company in St. Louis. Through Next Prep, Hilbert discovered he preferred hands-on work and began building toward it. A junior-year program through St. Louis Community College introduced him to pipe fitting, welding, precision manufacturing, and other technical fields, while helping him earn OSHA 10 and measurement certifications before graduation.
“It gave me a step up,” Hilbert said. “Not a lot of people think to get their OSHA certification in high school, so I was able to come to the job ready.”
Expanding What Opportunity Looks Like
Different fields, different paths, same four years of preparation behind both of them.
That is what Next Prep was built to do: give every student, whatever their direction, the time and exposure to choose a path on purpose. With Bloomberg Philanthropies’ $8 million investment now behind it, that model is no longer a pilot. It is St. Louis’s opportunity to equip students with stronger academic, career, and economic mobility pathways, and a clearer sense of what comes next.
As Hilbert put it, “Take opportunities and try your best. Even if it’s something you don’t like in the end, at least you got to try it instead of wondering.”
Forging New Pathways: Bloomberg Philanthropies Backs Next Prep’s Career Pathways Model
Forging New Pathways: Bloomberg Philanthropies Backs Next Prep’s Career Pathways Model
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