The Center for Education Statistics shows us that one in six 18- to 24-year-olds are neither working nor in school. The Bureau of Labor Statistics in July reported 10 million available jobs. As one New Hampshire study put it, “The gap between K-12 systems and workforce preparation is stark.”
We can compound this dismal picture with the results of a 2023 analysis by Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation. The State of American Youth Survey showed Generation Z students are negative about how well their schools prepared them for potential careers in the workplace.
The narrative we hear all too often from those we elect to office is one that stresses the importance of college. Yet the statistics also show that only 60% of those who enroll in two- or four-year programs earned a degree in six years. One set of researchers said students faced “coin toss odds of success.” The experience has left many of those students with enormous debt that the taxpayers are now being asked to cover.
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No one is suggesting that traditional higher education is not the best path for many students.
We are suggesting that it is not the best path for all students.
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Something is not working. We have known that for years now. Yet we continue to do the same things and expect that circumstances will change and yield better results.
Some states have turned to exploring career-centered learning, an educational strategy aimed at preparing K-12 students with workplace skills needed to build careers. The evidence suggests strongly that we need to build bridges between school and work that ensures a smooth transition to the workplace. These bridges may involve internships, academic programs with a career focus and other forms of high-quality work-based learning options.
No one is suggesting that traditional higher education is not the best path for many students. We are suggesting that it is not the best path for all students. Stigmatizing those who do not elect the path to college and placing most of the resources of the high school experience on preparation for the college experience is producing the poor college success rates we see each year.
Academic coursework is not superior to occupationally focused education. That sense of the superior pathway is at the root of many of our problems. We oversell the college experience as the only means to the good life, herd many students toward that experience, and allow high-education institutions to charge enormous sums for each year of that experience, leaving many students with a sense of failure, a debt level that limits their immediate life choices and few well-defined skills for the workplace.
More students graduate from secondary schools than ever before. Yet many of them are unprepared for life after graduation. Our focus has been misplaced.
Counting the number of students who go on to post-secondary education is a measure without much value as long as the six-year success rate at the college level is a “coin toss.” Counting the number of students who graduate from high school gives a false impression of success when one in six of them are left at the economic margins.
We need secondary and postsecondary education measures that focus on completion and skills attainment, not just enrollment. We need these programs to be affordable.
We are spending the money now but not wisely. The New York Federal Reserve reports that student debt is now the second largest form of household debt in America after only mortgage debt. It is larger than credit card debt or auto loan debt. For all too many of those students that debt came with no degree and no marketplace skills.
Skill-based programs, some that require college and even graduate education and others that are aimed at the transition of students from high school to the workforce, are necessary areas of investment and development.
We will undoubtedly hear from education leaders that they are already doing this. Yet the results show that if so, they are not doing it well enough.
The Gallup study results suggest that there is a strong relationship between career-connected learning initiatives and a student’s sense of engagement. The catch in this approach is that it requires more from elected officials in government that merely authorizing a sum of money for educational programs in the annual budget process.
Cape May County is what the Brookings Institute calls an educational desert. We have one community college and one four year institution, Stockton University, within 50 miles of the county. We need to harness the educational resources available to the county in a defined, measurable program of student success and successful transition to workplace careers.
We need our officials to engage the community in discussion, to develop publicly available plans for increasing student success, and to demonstrably reduce the number of young people who are facing a future of little opportunity.