Too often, education, workforce, and community development organizations operate in silos, while attempting to support the same stakeholders. Everyone is trying to serve the same student, the same employer, the same region, and yet the efforts rarely touch. That observation is what pushed me toward a different approach at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley: embedding work-based learning inside academic programs through the Student-Led Agency model, supported by a centr

Project-Based Learning (PBL) has become one of the most widely discussed instructional strategies in higher education. Faculty embrace it to increase engagement. Institutions promote it to improve critical thinking. Researchers validate its ability to deepen learning. But there is an important question that often goes unasked: Does project-based learning truly prepare students for the workforce, or does it simply make classroom learning more engaging? The distinction matters.