Education

We supported a Middle Eastern public school system to identify the root causes of low performance on international test scores through analysis of both performance (test scores across subjects, demographics, and over time) and health (student, teacher, and system mindsets, behaviors and resources). We partnered with the system to develop a ten-year road map across 15 initiatives to target 20-30 points improvement on international assessments.

We partnered with a flagship state university in the United States to improve how it delivered on its mission. Through engagement with more than 300 faculty and staff members, we helped to deliver impact in athletics, auxiliary revenues, enrollment, online growth, procurement, research, and student success. The institution saw a five percent increase in freshman enrollment, a ten percent increase in transfer enrollment, new research partnerships implemented, and net surplus captured from negotiation of contracts and savings from procurement initiatives.

We supported a leading university system in Latin America on a multi-year transformation to advance their mission of providing affordable higher education to underserved communities. We supported 140+ impact initiatives to strengthen the quality of academic programs (including launching hybrid modalities), improve retention and graduation rates, increase enrollment by over 14 percent, and enhance financial performance to foster sustainable growth.

We partnered with an ecosystem of public and private institutions in the United States to establish a four-year program to train 10,000 workers across a range of skilled healthcare occupations—including medical assistants and coders—to address a skill shortage and the state’s future healthcare needs. We provided a rigorous design process, stakeholder interviews, and analyses of the employer and its skilling and credentials landscape using proprietary McKinsey tools and insights.

We supported a city in the Middle East to develop a labor market model to identify the talent required to meet its eight-year economic development road map to double its labor force and develop initiatives to address key bottlenecks – including increasing labor force participation of women, improving international talent attraction, and prolonging productive working lifespans.

We supported a K-12 curriculum provider in the United States to map district customer journeys across the school year, design a new customer success playbook to improve administrator, teacher and student experience in onboarding and ongoing curriculum implementation, and develop a change management road map to shift behaviors across the organization – resulting in $20 million increase in net revenue retention in the first year.

McKinsey has a long-standing commitment to serving Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). We supported HBCU operations in the wake of COVID-19, and have worked with the President’s Board of Advisors (PBA) to develop a report to the President of the United States on how to best accelerate HBCUs on a trajectory of resiliency and long-term sustainable growth. We are humbled to have been awarded the Vista Prize for Public Leadership from The White House in recognition of this work which highlights our broader commitment to advancing education equity, excellence, and economic opportunity for the nation’s HBCU students.

We are working with Bottom Line to help them expand their work supporting degree‑aspiring students from under‑resourced communities. Our multi‑year partnership includes strategic planning to help Bottom Line expand into additional cities and launching other initiatives to reach their goal of supporting 20,000 students to get into college, graduate, and start their first career role.

We partnered with Braven on a multi-year effort to scale their work empowering first‑ generation and underrepresented students in college by equipping them with the skills, networks, experiences, and confidence to secure strong first jobs. We collaborated with them on the blueprint of a one‑of‑a‑kind, one‑stop shop digital platform to create a simple, engaging, and streamlined experience for students and automate aspects of the Braven program. Read more about Braven in our 2023 ESG report.

We have supported nonprofit Opportunity at Work in their efforts to ‘tear the paper ceiling’ and drive upward mobility for the 70 million workers in the US who are STARS (skilled through alternative routes). We have driven extensive research on skills-based hiring and built custom data-solutions to help employers implement new ways of screening for knowledge, skills and the capacity to learn – opening up new opportunities for workers without a college degree.

We supported Latin American nonprofit Enseña Perú to improve reading comprehension in primary schools by improving teacher training and coaching, class curriculums, performance and change management systems, and school district training tools. We designed and helped execute an initial pilot which will continue to evolve and scale in the coming years, with the ultimate goal of scaling it nationwide.

We supported Indian nonprofit Akanksha to develop a five-year strategy to fulfill their mission of delivering a high-quality education to each child, no matter his or her background. We facilitated a research-rich and stakeholder-informed strategy process to explore opportunities to scale their school model to new geographies, build and experiment with capabilities at the state or district level, and experiment with innovative schools with existing beneficiaries.