OPINION: We’ve been treating college as a career plan, but it’s failing too many students

In one of Denver’s wealthiest suburbs, where median family income tops $150,000 and nearly every kid is expected to go to college, students are now lining up for trade certifications.

Their parents aren’t worried; in fact, most of them are championing the move.

For decades, Americans have been treating college as a career plan, spurred by the “college for all” movement — a decades-long educational and political push that aimed to make a four-year college degree the standard expectation and primary goal for all high school students. The data show that it doesn’t work. 

Although 88 percent of college freshmen say getting a good job is “a main reason” they enrolled, more than half of college graduates are underemployed a year out, working jobs that don’t require a degree. A decade later, 45 percent still are.

These aren’t students who dropped out or gave up. They did everything right and still couldn’t find their footing. 

Related: Interested in innovations in higher education? Subscribe to our free biweekly higher education newsletter.

The problem isn’t that college doesn’t matter. It’s that college has become an expensive career exploration strategy, with no exit ramp for students who may need one. No wonder confidence in higher education is slipping.

It does not have to be that way. The opportunities for those without a four-year degree are exploding. The U.S. faces an annual shortage of nearly 712,000 workers with certificates and associate degrees in fields where workers without a bachelor’s degree can earn upward of $55,000 a year, Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce found.

The jobs are there. The pathways to them are not.

One course correction to the “college for all” movement is playing out in Denver’s Cherry Creek neighborhood, where high school students are participating in a program that offers real-world skill building and trade certifications, ranging from computer science to aviation to health science. 

Students split their time between the program and their regular classes, with transportation provided to and from their home high school. When I visited the program, I met three students who were all headed down different paths: One intended to pursue a bachelor’s degree for engineering. Another was interested in an associate degree for construction management. The third was excited to earn an industry credential to become a chef. 

The common thread they shared was that they were all locked in on their career paths. They had real experience in the field from the Cherry Creek Innovation Campus and clarity that they were moving in the right direction. Most Cherry Creek students still end up enrolling in college, but they do so with direction and purpose. 

Georgetown’s ROI data shows that associate degrees and certificates often deliver a higher return on investment than bachelor’s degrees in the first 10 years after completion, although the data also shows that ROI for bachelor’s degrees pulls ahead at 15 years and then widens the gap thereafter.

That nuance matters: For students who need economic traction now, shorter-term credentials can be the smarter first move.

The “college for all” movement, while well-intentioned, has created a false binary between academic preparedness and workforce skills. Programs like Cherry Creek’s not only improve engagement in high school and college-going rates but also offer a more defined pathway into the workforce. 

In my former role as CEO of a public charter school foundation, I was fortunate to be able to support the journeys of hundreds of students from college acceptance to college graduation. But it’s the journeys that didn’t work out as planned that have stuck with me the most.

Take, for example, the experience of a student from Oakland who I met through our career coaching program. She grew up wanting to be a nurse and had enrolled in a nursing program for a bachelor of science degree, diligently setting out on her long-awaited career path and becoming the first in her family to go to college.

But she had never been exposed to real-world healthcare or nursing work in high school, and she got two years into her program before realizing nursing wasn’t for her. She transferred to a community college, worked at a fast-food restaurant, and went through what she now calls “a lost phase.” 

Two years gone; not because she failed, but because the system never gave her a chance to figure out her path before she enrolled. What’s worse, most students in this situation are left saddled with student loan debt. We can do better. 

Related: As college graduates fret over finding jobs, a record shortage of workers is projected

If we want to meet the needs of a rapidly shifting economy — one in which college graduates can’t find good-paying jobs and employers can’t find graduates with the right skill set — we need to stop treating college and career readiness as separate tracks. 

It’s time for families to stop picturing shop class when they hear “vocational training.” That’s a stigma born from a past of underfunded, poorly constructed programs that filtered kids out of opportunities rather than into them. 

Today those programs look vastly different. Take, for example, nonprofit Ridgeline’s maritime career exploration program for high school students in the San Francisco Bay Area, where rising 11th and 12th graders get hands-on paid career experience in a variety of maritime fields such as ship engineering, ferry and container ship operations and port management. Some maritime jobs require apprenticeships; others require a degree from nearby Cal Poly Maritime Academy. Many pay six figures.

It’s time to set a new standard: Every high school should offer students the opportunity to graduate with a diploma and an industry-recognized credential or documented work experience. 

Honor the choice to skip college while giving those who want a degree more purpose. Everyone wins.

Patrick O’Donnell is CEO and co-founder of Ridgeline, a nonprofit that connects Bay Area students from underserved communities to high-wage, high-demand careers.

Contact the opinion editor at [email protected].

This story about college and careers was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.

The post OPINION: We’ve been treating college as a career plan, but it’s failing too many students appeared first on The Hechinger Report.