AT&T Aspire is the largest education initiative in AT&T’s history, and it is one of the largest corporate investments in high school success and workforce readiness.

Through AT&T Aspire, 100,000 students will shadow AT&T employees over the next 5 years.  Job Shadow aims to give students a feel for what the real world is like and to show students how what they learn in school translates to the workplace.  

Every 26 seconds, another student gives up on school, resulting in 1.2 million students in the United States who dropout of school each year.  Dropouts are far more likely to be unemployed, to live in poverty, or to be in prison than high school graduates.

The high school dropouts who enter the workforce often lack basic writing and math skills needed to work.   This leaves the U.S. workforce underskilled and it threatens U.S. competitiveness in the global economy.

The U.S. ranks 18^th among developed countries in the percentage of students who complete a secondary-education program.