Mary Alice McCarthy

Senior Policy Analyst, Higher Education Initiative

Mary Alice McCarthy is joining the Higher Education Policy Team at the New America Foundation, where she will serve as a senior policy analyst and focus on the intersection between higher education, postsecondary career and technical education, and workforce development programs. Most recently, she was a member of the Policy, Research and Evaluation Staff (PRES) team at the Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE) at the U.S. Department of Education. She is leading a variety of policy reform and evaluation efforts in the areas of postsecondary career and technical education, career pathways, credentialing, and competency-based education models. Since joining OVAE, she established the Interagency Working Group on Career Pathways which is composed of staff from the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Labor and works to better align federal investments and policy in education, training, and employment services to support career advancement. She also serves as OVAE’s liaison to the Department of Labor’s Trade Act Assistance Community College and Training (TAACCCT) grants programs, collaborating on the development of the grant solicitations and technical assistance strategies.

Prior to joining OVAE, McCarthy worked in the Office of Workforce Investment in the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) at the U.S. Department of Labor, where she specialized in improving training and employment services for adult and dislocated workers. She directed the Career Pathways Initiative, cosponsored by OVAE, providing technical assistance to nine states and two tribal entities on the development of career pathway systems. Through this initiative, she helped grantees forge effective partnerships among employers and education, workforce, and human service agencies for developing and implementing career pathway programs. She also developed policy guidance and technical assistance activities to support the goal of increasing credential attainment rates among low-skilled youths and adults.

McCarthy has a Master in public administration from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of North Carolina. At Harvard, she was the 2009 fellow in philanthropy at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, where she conducted research on the role of philanthropic organizations in supporting innovative approaches to workforce development and adult education.