As college students prepare to graduate, they face the pivotal but often daunting task of securing their first job and unlocking long-term economic mobility.
Yet the economic benefits of earning a four-year degree are not distributed equally. According to an analysis from the Pew Research Center, first-generation college students, on average, earn lower incomes and have less wealth than their peers with college-educated parents — making the transition from college to career even more crucial for first-generation students.
Enter Basta, a nonprofit organization founded in 2016 that aims to “close the employment gap for first-generation students” by providing them with a variety of customized career navigation resources and connecting them to strong first jobs.
Now, through a $1.2 million investment from The Leon Levine Foundation, Basta is expanding its model to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) across North and South Carolina.
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According to a press release, The Leon Levine Foundation — which now has $2 billion in assets — has made “career-connected learning a regional priority” and is committed to investments focused on pathways that connect young people to economic opportunities. In January, the foundation announced the “Carolina Career-Connected Learning Challenge,” which will offer up to $2.5 million in funding for models that bridge gaps between high school, postsecondary education, and the workforce.
Carolina Demography estimates that 49% of North Carolina’s next generation is likely to be first-generation in college, underscoring the scale of talent and the need for clearer pathways into strong first jobs.
— Press release from Basta
Sheila Sarem, founder and CEO of Basta, said the organization has focused on a single question since it began: “If we believe that first-gen college students have everything it takes to succeed in the world of work, then how do we sort of create that connective tissue between those young people and those great first jobs?”
Basta started in New York with a fellowship program focused on high-touch advising for students. Then, in 2019, Basta began to consider what it would look like to partner directly with colleges, since students said they often turned to their college first for career support.
In 2020, Basta launched Seekr, a digital career navigation tool that gives young people “a GPS” for their path to employment, providing them with personalized next steps after they complete an assessment. According to Basta, more than 45,000 young people have used Seekr.
“We felt like if we’re going to work with colleges at scale, we need a quick way to understand where students are on their career readiness journeys to be able to connect them with the right resources, to be able to unlock that first job opportunity,” said Sarem.
After students take the Seekr assessment, they gain access to Discovery, Basta’s career preparation platform that includes live online workshops, resources, a job board, and more.
According to Sarem, Basta now partners with more than 100 organizations, reaching students across 300 colleges nationwide.
As Basta scaled, Sarem said, the organization reflected on the fact that many employers prefer to hire local talent, and that most young adults do not move far from their childhood home. Given that, Basta decided to target its growth in specific regions where “partnering with the existing ecosystem could really lead to outcomes for young people,” Sarem said.
North Carolina was at the top of that list.
“(North Carolina) has an incredibly vibrant ecosystem of HBCUs, you have multiple hiring hubs across the state — technology hiring, banking hiring,” said Sarem. “So we felt like it was a really interesting and attractive market to prove out our model in a specific region.”
Read more of EdNC’s coverage on HBCUs
Sarem has traveled to the Carolinas twice already, meeting with employers, higher education leaders, and youth-serving organizations. In addition to starting pilots with Morris College in South Carolina and KIPP Pride High School in North Carolina, she said that Basta has worked with HBCUs in North Carolina to set up a working group. There, college leaders discuss what they are learning about students who have taken Seekr and share best practices about how career servings are being delivered on campus.
Basta’s services are designed as “an infrastructure layer that strengthens the entire career services system,” supplementing colleges’ existing career service efforts, according to the press release. After a student interacts with Seekr, Basta shares data back with their counselor or adviser, providing tailored information to help customize career conversations.
“Our motto is, ‘Let us do the heavy lifting,’” Sarem said. “We will sort of work with the college or institution up until what we call the kickoff, which is when their students take Seekr, and then from there, Basta will do all the continued nudging to make sure that they jump on to the right programming.”
About 75% of students invited to take Seekr complete the assessment, according to Sarem. When large numbers of students at a particular college take the assessment, Basta can then hold sessions with colleges to dig into Seekr results, identifying student segments they may want to better target with custom career resources.
According to the press release, Basta will convene partners later in 2026 to “exchange findings and refine approaches based on real outcomes.” The initiative will also include an impact evaluation and roadmap “designed for replication in other states.”
Learn more about Basta is this video, featuring Sarem.
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