Big four accounting firm PwC is expanding its Access Your Potential program through a $125 million dollar investment that is focused on increasing social equity for Black and Latinx students.
The new pledge will go towards initiatives that combine high-demand digital and career readiness training, upskilling and mentorship throughout their college careers in hopes of preparing them for future careers.
“As a firm we're focused on building trust in society and solving important problems,” Rod Adams, PwC’s U.S. and Mexico talent acquisition and onboarding leader, says. “In this case what we are looking to address and play a role in is the equity gap that exists in this country.”
Access Your Potential was initially launched five years ago as a general means to create equal opportunity for students. This expanded program is designed to create new opportunities for 25,000 college-aged Black and Latinx students specifically, who have statistically struggled to keep up with their peers when landing full-time employment after graduation, Adams says.
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Black graduates are almost twice as likely to be unemployed as their white peers a year after leaving college, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency — 5.5% of Black graduates are unemployed a little over a year after graduation, compared with 2.8% of white graduates. Of those who do land employment, only 53% of Black graduates land full-time jobs compared to 62% of white graduates.
“We have our own aspirational goals in our firm to continue to drive hiring so that we mirror the representation [of students] enrolled in higher education and graduating from higher education,” Adams says.
The investment will be allocated towards building a new curriculum, leveraging the right technology and even put towards potential salaries for students who could end up working for the firm after they’ve graduated.
The new venture is an effort to veer away from one-off diversity touch-points Adams says. Instead, the firm is seeking to create a sustainable, long-term strategy by primarily expanding existing relationships with historically Black colleges and universities and Hispanic Serving Institutions, as well as by adding new schools to their network.
“If you want to drive and hire diverse talent into your organization you need to make sure the sources you're recruiting [from] have diverse talent,” Adams says.
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Beginning this fall, PwC will deploy outreach efforts on college campuses in hopes of enrolling prospective students as early on in their college careers as possible, in order to build lasting relationships.
“There'll be quick hits where if [students] have a question there's a place where they can go to just ask and get quick answers,” Adams says. “But there'll be more intimate settings too where you can really engage in small groups or one-on-one and then ultimately, when they're ready to look for a job we will be a place that’ll be able to help match them.”
