Latest student-built tiny home, now merely small, rolls off to a permanent location in Bridgewater

An ambitious plan for the 69-acre Regent Park neighborhood is disrupting entrenched notions of class, race and religion, at a time when concerns over income inequality and immigration are growing.

Substitutes for city parking requirements are becoming increasingly popular throughout the United States. Rather than using off-street parking, many housing developers now provide residents with alternatives that promote reduced driving. This method is better for the environment and lowers the cost of housing in urban areas.

The Holberton School, a San Francisco "start-up" university with a two-year curriculum, aims to provide an affordable and estimable computer science education while removing barriers to knowledge -- age, gender, ethnicity, past professional life -- typically confronted by minority and low-income students across the nation. By "teaching the population frozen out of the internet age" Holberton demonstrates how altered admissions processes and low-cost tuition plans imbue the tech sector's workforce with a more diverse array of qualified candidates.

In response to the rising cost of college and a changing labor market, several startups are offering an alternative to traditional 4-year higher education programs. In exchange for on average one year of training in computer programming at no cost upfront, students turn over a portion of their salary for a set number of years after graduating. If they are not offered a job within a certain period of time, students don't have to pay. "How many people have tried to learn programming on their own and not made it?" co-founder of Lambda School said. "Usually that's just a matter of not sticking it out ."

Two schools in New York and Washington state are breaking the traditional high school mold by combining college preparation with career and technical education. Amadou Diallo writes, "Debating whether kids need hands-on training or academic rigor misses the point."

Since 1995, Pragnachaksu has paved a path to empowerment for blind women in India, offering academic and vocational classes in addition to braille instruction. The school provides free housing and tuition for girls looking for primary and secondary education, a service that is usually unavailable to the country's eight million blind citizens, and to visually impaired women in particular.

In Wisconsin, the Department of Corrections is tailoring their prison education programs to meet the needs of the job market, and it is benefitting former inmates as well as the economy. Milwaukee Area Technical College works to get inmates credentials, which helps them get jobs upon release from prison. The investment pays off. For every dollar spent educating inmates, the government saves $5 in the years after their release.

Now in 10 states and 17 countries, the P-TECH program combines high school with internships and free community college classes. In low-income neighborhoods in Newburgh, New York, P-TECH has helped increase earning and career potential and started to close the skills gap.

Tennessee Reconnect, which started as a small-scale "mentorship and financial support program", has now been adopted and expanded throughout the state as a way to help adults start or continue higher education. Now in its second year, the program matches applicants with "navigators," adult mentors who understand the specific student's financial and social challenges and helps them navigate the process every step of the way. The program also provides funding to students to pay for coursework and is now looking to expand its operations to jails and prisons.

KC Tenants is a tenant union that connects renters to put pressure on landlords and local government to protect tenant rights. With the help of the group’s political arm, KC Tenants Power, they have blocked thousands of evictions, received millions of dollars in funding to secure affordable housing for those in need and have grown to about 10,000 members. Outside of blocking evictions and securing long-term affordable housing, the group also has four members who won City Council seats.