Prestige Doesn't Make a Career. Purpose Does.
“I found myself really for the first time in a complete funk as I tried to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.”
That’s how Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach For America, described her senior year. Career fairs were full of finance, consulting, and tech jobs. Great for prestige, but none of them offered ways to champion community causes she cared about. The clash of meaning vs. money and the pressure to follow “successful” paths is what our CEO Aneesh Sohoni calls the purpose gap. His hot take? “A generation of would-be changemakers feel stuck on the sidelines while the biggest problems in our communities go unsolved.”
Wendy refused to live with that void, so she took action. As a public policy major committed to expanding access to quality education, she launched Teach For America in 1990—giving graduates a way to lead through service, teach effectively, and confront the real barriers students face. More than 30 years later, TFA remains a launching pad for young leaders who want to strengthen schools, make an impact, and carry those skills into any field.
Ready to disrupt the traditional career funnel and avoid the purpose gap? Here are five ways TFA helps you do meaningful work today and for years to come.
1. Leadership and Professional Development Resources
Whether you’re leading a classroom, a nonprofit, or a team in business, our Learning Hub is packed with interactive workshops, toolkits, and career guidance. These resources can help you grow as a thoughtful leader and develop skills you’ll use anywhere, like collaboration, problem solving, and communication. The Leadership for Impact micro‑certification builds those skills into a credential you can carry forward (and a badge you can flex on your resume or LinkedIn profile).
2. Teach For America Ignite
Teach For America Ignite is a popular program for students who don’t want to wait until graduation to make a difference. As a paid, part‑time virtual tutor, you’ll support K‑12 students with high‑dosage tutoring to progress their learning by building a tight-knit, caring community. It’s your chance to build relationships through clear communication and active listening. A seasoned educator will also offer strategies and help you develop ideas to sharpen your leadership skills. As you support your students' academic improvement, showing up week after week will help them feel capable and confident! TFA Ignite can be your way of making an impact, immediately.
3. Teach For America Corps
The Teach For America corps is our most transformative experience. It is our paid, two‑year immersive in service leadership. As a new educator, you’ll be trained, coached, and backed by a team of education experts. Every step of the way, we equip you to foster student success and cultivate skills that make you unstoppable in any industry.
As someone who cares about community, you’ll also have the opportunity to spot problems and proactively address them. A student keeps getting marked absent, but you learn they’re helping their family before school. You find a federal resource that provides daily transportation. Now they show up ready to learn and their family avoids fines. That’s how every challenge becomes a way to strengthen a community. The results? Students close learning gaps, gain confidence, and often achieve more than expected. The TFA corps is where your service becomes your superpower.
TFA Game Changers
During COVID, Priyanka Farrell (Hawai'i '18) was teaching math as a corps member in Hawaii. She saw kids slipping through the cracks and counselors maxed out trying to comfort 400+ students. Instead of watching the system break, she taught herself to code and built Edunimity, a tool that helps schools spot struggles early and give kids support before it’s too late.
As a public educator, Eduardo Martinez (Jacksonville '24) has seen what Jacksonville families need most—resources, safety, and dignity. Those lessons from the classroom inspired him to run for Jacksonville City Council, District 5. A first‑generation Cuban American and college graduate, leveraging teaching to spark a lifelong commitment to advocacy.
Marie Sanyang (Phoenix '23) discovered resilience, empathy, and purpose as an English and social studies teacher through Teach For America. The skills she honed with students—mobilizing support, building relationships, inspiring confidence—now drive her work at A New Leaf, tackling homelessness, domestic violence, and poverty across Arizona.
4. Alumni Leadership Pathways and Networks
Once you enter TFA alumnihood after two years in the corps, we continue to support you and more than 70,000 leaders across education, policy, tech, health, and business—all committed to community impact. Whether bringing more opportunities to rural communities, building businesses that reinvent student learning, or developing policies that ensure widespread access to quality education, we help you keep building a purpose‑driven career.
Why? Because we want our career events, fellowships, and exclusive national and regional networks to create long‑term leadership growth. TFA alumni leadership programs can help you sustain impact in classrooms, communities, and systems well beyond your corps experience.
5. Exclusive Partnerships and Opportunities
TFA creates partnerships with universities, nonprofits, and employers to widen the funnel of purpose‑driven career paths. You’ll find exclusive scholarships and graduate school pipelines to continue your learning. Or dive into our many civic leadership partnerships. Each avenue gives you ways to serve communities throughout your career.
Take Julianna Krause, a 2022 TFA Miami-Dade alum, who’s starting her master’s in Education Leadership, Organizations, and Entrepreneurship at Harvard. She credits the team at Jose de Diego Middle School and her mentors at Teach For America for believing in her. Leaders like Lili Hynes, a 2023 TFA Bay Area alum inspired by her students’ strength, curiosity, and resilience, are carrying that impact forward; she’s headed to the University of Washington to pursue a master’s in Education Policy. With TFA, your impact can grow into long-term influence.