Throughout her life, Tiffany McRae has been driven by a love of learning. As an undergraduate at California State University, Sacramento, she majored in psychology and minored in communications, while also completing a fellowship with the U.S. Department of Education’s prestigious McNair Scholars program. Upon graduation, she quickly began working her way up in the workforce, learning all she could as she ascended from a customer service representative to a supervisor with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), a community-owned, nonprofit electric service.

Tiffany Jacobs had been working at a bank in her hometown of Grand Rapids, Michigan, while also attending a traditional four-year college, when the Great Recession hit in the late 2000s. Like many Americans, she was stung hard and became one of the 8.7 million people who found themselves out of work. Without a job, and feeling uninspired by her educational pursuits, she left school and her hometown behind to seek opportunity in a larger city.