Most workforce training programs measure success at the finish line: did the student complete the course and earn a certificate? WorkTexas has been asking a different set of questions since day one — questions that take years to answer.
Mike Feinberg, co-founder of WorkTexas, built a post-graduation follow-up structure into the program at launch in 2020. Career coaches check in with graduates every six months. They ask whether graduates are still employed, whether wages have gone up, whether they need help navigating a workplace problem. That commitment runs for at least five years.
Reporting from MyEducationData on WorkTexas five years in and focused on what happens after training examines what that commitment looks like now that the program’s earliest adult cohorts have reached the five-year mark. The data from that first full cycle is beginning to arrive, and it supports the model’s premise: of roughly 900 adult alumni of the WorkTexas training classes, over 600 are currently employed. About 100 have returned for additional training to move into higher-paying roles. Adults employed for a year or more after completing the program average $27 an hour. The program reported a 91% adult training completion rate in 2024-25.
What Mike Feinberg’s Five-Year Follow-Up Actually Looks Like
“We’re not just looking at how the students are doing with us this year,” Feinberg says. “We make a commitment to follow our students for at least five years. We’re interested in what that looks like in terms of career contentment, and especially in terms of earning power and creating sustainable lives for themselves, their families, and future generations.”
The follow-up work is handled by career coaches, and the conversations range considerably in scope. Some are practical: a graduate wants to know whether to take a different job, or needs help updating a resume. Others go deeper.
“It is job coaching, which can be technical, or it can also turn into therapy at times,” Feinberg says. “We’re having conversations like: I just had a fight with my boss. I don’t like the job, there’s another opening across the street — do you think I should apply? We’re there for those conversations too.”
Shirmeca Littlejohn, a WorkTexas career success coach, frames the commitment plainly to incoming students at orientation: ‘If you decide to stay, this is a five-year relationship. Five years of us checking in with you: Are you working? Are you happy at your job? Are you working on a promotion? Do you need resources?’
Media coverage tracking Feinberg’s public commentary since WorkTexas launched shows a consistent message across all five years: certificate completion is easy to manufacture; employment outcomes over time are harder to fake. The five-year window forces honesty about which graduates are building careers and which are cycling through entry-level roles without advancing.
What the Data Is Starting to Show
The early success stories have moved from anecdotal to representative. One WorkTexas graduate from the construction track moved from knowing almost nothing about the industry to managing a homebuilding project within months. Within a year and a half of finishing the program, she was earning a six-figure salary as a regional manager. A building maintenance alumnus won a national excellence award from Camden Living.
Childcare and transportation remain persistent barriers that the five-year data has helped identify. An early attempt to run an on-site childcare center at Gallery Furniture didn’t draw enough participants; the program shifted to connecting students with subsidies and childcare options closer to where they live and work. WorkTexas provides public transit passes and a bus for work-based internships.
Feinberg acknowledges those challenges aren’t fully solved. What the five-year commitment does, he argues, is surface them honestly — instead of losing track of graduates the moment they leave the building and claiming success because a certificate was issued.
Updates on WorkTexas programs, the Texas School Venture Fund, and Feinberg’s broader work are accessible through his Solo.to page, which aggregates links to his various platforms and organizations.
Feinberg’s perspectives on workforce economics and career development are also available through his StockTwits profile. The volume of alumni WorkTexas is now tracking has become, by Feinberg’s own account, a welcome logistical challenge: the program has more graduates to support than its current follow-up infrastructure was originally designed to handle.
An overview of Feinberg’s career and contributions to education and workforce development is available on EverybodyWiki. The five-year tracking model that WorkTexas built from the ground up is, he says, the non-negotiable: any program that doesn’t know where its graduates are five years later doesn’t know whether it worked.
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