The aspirational endgame of K-12 educators is producing “college and career-ready” students. Yet connections between school, college, and career remain tenuous. Many students are unprepared for college coursework because they don’t pursue a sufficiently rigorous high school curriculum. Once in college, they lack confidence that what they learn will benefit how and what they earn — even as they fail to fully leverage valuable campus-based career resources.
Shoring up the connection between education and occupation is imperative. It’s money in the job bank.
Too many students, including higher-achieving ones, are opting out of a degree. New analysis from Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce shows more than 500,000 of the 1.5 million students in the top half of their high school class each year attempt but don’t complete a postsecondary certificate or college degree.
“The cumulative effects of this loss are immense — 5 million lost youth every decade, which is nearly half of the projected 11 million shortfall of college educated workers needed in the U.S. over the next 10 years,” noted CEW’s press release. This is a potent threat to American competitiveness, and it’s coming from within.
Overall, federal data show only 59 percent of full-time students at four-year institutions complete a bachelor’s degree within six years. Less than one-third of students pursuing a certificate or associate’s degree at two-year institutions finish those programs three years later.
Why are students giving up? One potential factor: shaky confidence in the return on their investment. Just 36 percent of students in Gallup-Strada’s 2017 College Student Survey expressed strong confidence that they would graduate with the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in the workplace. They’re justifiably skeptical — but not particularly proactive. Almost four in 10 students never darken the door of their colleges’ career services office.
What else? College costs are soaring, and a 2017 College Board analysis indicates “financial aid has slowed relative to the growth in tuition and fees.” When college feels like a roll of the occupational dice, it’s an especially hard sell for those who can’t pay full price.
Higher education institutions must boost affordability. They must also increase collaboration with business leaders, earlier Gallup data show. Just 11 percent of these leaders strongly agree that colleges provide students with the skills their businesses need.
High schools should push harder on a core curriculum. According to data from ACT’s college admissions test, the percentage of students pursuing a core curriculum is at its lowest level in five years. In 2016-17, 68 percent of ACT test-takers took a core curriculum, down from 74 percent in 2012-13. Just 39 percent of 2017 graduates met three or four college readiness benchmarks (in reading, English, math and science).
Pursuing a core curriculum includes, minimally, four years of English and three years of mathematics, social studies, and natural science. Such a curriculum is one of the best ways to ensure baseline college readiness.
Schools can also work to raise students’ occupational sights. Helping high schoolers gain exposure to industry experts through mentoring or internships provides them with workplace experience and enables them to make more strategic, sustainable choices about a college major.
Finally, high school counseling emphasizing tighter alignment between students’ skills and goals and postsecondary programs is critical. A student’s major is much more predictive of future economic success than attendance at particular or prestige institutions, CEW has found.
That might reassure high school seniors anxiously awaiting college admissions decisions this spring. Where they go is far less significant than what they do when they get there —and ultimately, whether they stay the course.
Kristen Blair is a Chapel Hill-based education writer.