More students are taking a non-traditional path, skipping a four-year college in favor of community college, on-the-job training, or career-technical education.
As the number of non-college-bound students increases, so must the options and level of support, conversation, and connection, said panelists on a wide-ranging virtual webinar hosted by Widehall, a consulting firm based in the District of Columbia.
As a result, education leaders across the ideological spectrum are pushing to make high school a place that offers both college readiness and career prep.
“High school should no longer be simply college prep,” said Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, the largest teachers’ union, during the June 4 webinar. Underscoring the bipartisan nature of interest in expanding career prep, Weingarten, who was heavily criticized by Republicans over her union’s role in school reopenings during the pandemic, was joined by an official from the U.S. Department of Education and a Democratic U.S. House representative.
Data on students’ trajectories underscore the point. According to a 2023 report by the Institute of Education Sciences, the statistical division of the Education Department, universities and colleges have experienced a 15% decline in enrollment between 2010 and 2021. Meanwhile, 63% of students are open to community college, on-the-job training, or a career and technical education instead of a four-year school after high school in 2023 according to a survey by the Educational Credit Management Corporation (ECMC) Group and Vice Media.
Weingarten and other experts emphasized that there needs to be a bigger collaboration between high schools, colleges and universities, and employers to bring non-college-bound students other career opportunities.
“How do we connect kids to their future starting in high school and create more responsibility for everybody?” she asked.
Roadblocks for non-college-bound students
Non-college-bound students feel less prepared for the future than students intending to pursue an associate’s or bachelor’s degree—40% versus 54%, respectively—according to a 2024 Walton Family Foundation-Gallup survey.
One reason for this gap is the lack of exposure to different career paths. “When people are unemployed, it is not because they are malingering out of the labor force, but because they don’t know how to connect with opportunity,” said Nick Moore, the deputy assistant secretary of the office of career, technical, and adult education at the Department of Education.
The 2024 Walton Family Foundation-Gallup survey also found that a small percentage of high schoolers have had conversations about non-college options such as apprenticeships and internships (23%), non-degree requiring careers (19%), or entrepreneurism (13%).
Weingarten stressed that there needs to be more integration between industries and schools to design programs. “You need kids to interface with industry in a real way, whether it is an internship or pre-apprenticeship program,” said Weingarten.
Supporting non-college-bound students
Career Convergence magazine suggests starting with school counselors, who can directly gauge how many students are not college-bound. In addition, these counselors can discuss non-college options such as apprenticeship programs, technical/trade schools, military, service year programs, and gap year programs with students and parents.
Schools can arrange events for non-accredited careers, giving students a similar opportunity that they would have at college fairs and school visits. Education Week recently interviewed young people who skipped college, who revealed how their high school exposed them to non-accredited careers and supported their interests.
Another way to provide support is through a career-tech education program, which has been a bipartisan issue for years. U.S. House Rep. John Mannion, D-N.Y., has been promoting CTE programs in New York through a partnership with Micron Technology, a technology company that focuses on memory and storage solutions. This partnership allowed students interested in the semiconductor or tech industry a pathway from their high school.
“There was communication with our local manufacturers and our local higher ed institution, and there was investment by the school board,” said Mannion. “If we are going to meet the demands of the future and the workforce demands … we need more flexibility in the school district and the programs that are pilots.”