Propelling Futures Forward: Advancing Young Adults in High-Demand Health Careers Through a Jobs-First Approach

Propel America is a nonprofit organization that offers a jobs-first, employer-embedded training program designed to help young adults enter high-wage healthcare careers. The intervention consists of Propel America’s tuition-free training pathways program which includes two career tracks, Medical Assistant and Sterile Processing Technician.

To participate, applicants must be 18–26 years old, have a high school diploma or GED, not hold a bachelor’s degree, and not be enrolled in a two- or four-year college. They must also meet additional requirements, including authorization to work in the U.S. without sponsorship and living within commuting distance of one of the employer partners.

The training is delivered through higher education partners in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, and California. Instruction is provided in a hybrid model that combines online coursework with in-person, employer-designed lab experiences. Program participants are assigned a dedicated coach who provides one-on-one support throughout training. Regional employer partners provide supervised externships and commit to interviewing graduates, creating a direct pathway from training to employment.

2026-08-01

2029-08-31

Interim outcome : Credential attainment status (Medical Assistant or Sterile Processing Technician certification).
Confirmatory outcomes: Employment status and earnings.

The RCT will include all eligible applicants who apply to Propel America’s Medical Assistant or Sterile Processing Technician training program tracks. Random assignment will occur at the individual level within each site and cohort separately for the two program tracks (blocking by site and cohort within each track). The five sites include Camden, NJ; Newark, NJ; Philadelphia, PA; Baton Rouge, LA; and Los Angeles, CA. Program cohorts typically start in August/September, January, and March. For example, the first two cohorts will be the Medical Assistant and Sterile Processing Technician training program tracks starting in August 2026 in Baton Rouge, LA. We will conduct random assignment with a total of 35 cohorts across the Medical Assistant and Sterile Processing Technician tracks, with the recruitment and randomization period starting in February 2026 and ending in June 2028. Each eligible applicant will have a 60% chance of being assigned to the treatment group and a 40% chance of being assigned to the control group. The anticipated sample size is 1,454 individuals (872 treatment and 582 control).

Individuals assigned to the treatment group will be offered a spot in Propel America’s
program. Control group members will not be permitted to participate in the Propel America program for fifteen months after the treatment group completes the program, though they may enroll in similar training programs outside of Propel America during that period.

The study will measure program impact on credential attainment, employment, and earnings. Data sources will include surveys completed by treatment and control group members at the end of the program, administrative data from Propel America, credential attainment data from the National Student Clearinghouse, and employment and earnings data from Equifax.

Not available

Randomization will be conducted using a computer and Stata statistical software.

Randomization will occur at the individual level. Eligible applicants to Propel America’s Medical Assistant and Sterile Processing Technician program tracks will be individually randomized within site cohort blocks for each program track to ensure balance across program locations, program tracks, and start dates. A site-cohort block refers to a cohort of the Medical Assistant or Sterile Processing Technician program track that starts on a particular date in one of the sites (e.g., Medical Assistant program starting in August 2026 in Baton Rouge, LA). No additional levels of randomization are used.

No

No clusters. Approximately 1,454 eligible applicants will be randomized.

1,454 eligible applicants

Treatment: 872 individuals; Control: 582 individuals (total ≈1,454).

We will conduct intent-to-treat (ITT) analyses with all eligible applicants for whom we have outcome data to estimate the impact of offering the Propel program across all sites. We anticipate some outcome data will be missing, which we have estimated at 15% for our power analyses. We estimate a minimum detectable effect (MDE) of 6.5 percentage-points on employment and $452.60 in earnings based on an alpha of 0.05 and a power of 0.80, assuming that the proportion of the control group that is employed is 0.5, a standard deviation of semiannual earnings of $3,500.