The Student Upward Mobility Initiative works to support students’ economic mobility by identifying the PK–12 skills and competencies that drive long-term success, especially for students from backgrounds of economic disadvantage. We are launching our second request for proposals (RFP) in August 2025, which represents an additional step toward our long-term vision of equipping education policymakers and practitioners with a short list of key mobility drivers around which to design systems and structures. This informational webinar is for interested applicants.

Through this new RFP, we seek studies that identify the skills and competencies in late high school that propel students into economic mobility and the ways skill development and access to opportunity in early high school and middle school shape those trajectories. We prize innovative, audacious projects that make creative use of novel data sources and study designs to make groundbreaking advances in what we know about the drivers of mobility and how we can measure them. We invite projects that support these areas of inquiry across two tracks: (1) developing better measures of likely mobility drivers and (2) identifying and validating mobility drivers. We expect to award $3 million in grants ranging from $50,000 to $500,000 for projects lasting up to 24 months. We will share the same overview content across two dates and times to increase access and convenience.

Attendees will learn about

• the initiative’s motivation and goals,
• the RFP’s funding priorities,
• the application process and how to submit a letter of inquiry, and
• answers to prospective applicants’ questions about the RFP.

To submit questions before the webinar, please email [email protected]. We will try to answer as many questions as we can during the Q&A. A recording of the webinar will be made available online afterward. You do not need to attend the webinar to apply to the RFP.
 

Speakers

• Karishma Furtado, Co–Principal Investigator and Senior Research Associate, Urban Institute
• Maggie Reeves, Co–Principal Investigator and Director of K–12 Education, Urban Institute

Student Upward Mobility Initiative is a sponsored project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors with programmatic leadership provided by the Urban Institute. Funding for this initiative is provided by the Walton Family Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, The Joyce Foundation, and the Overdeck Family Foundation. For more information on the Urban Institute’s funding principles, go to urban.org/about/organizational-principles.

We strive to host inclusive, accessible events that enable all individuals to engage fully. Please email [email protected] if you require any accommodations or have any questions about this event.