What is the compelling question or challenge?
How can pathway opportunities be developed and implemented so that underrepresented high school students are better prepared for university enrollment and workforce employment?
What do we know now about this Big Idea and what are the key research questions we need to address?
The issue of college and career readiness is a concern for young people in the United States. Even though high school graduation rates reached record highs in 2016, African American and Hispanic students were persistently at-risk of not graduating on time and exhibited lower graduation rates (76% and 79%, respectively) compared to their Caucasian and Asian/Pacific Islander counterparts (88% and 91%, respectively) (Balingit, 2017). Counterintuitive to these record high graduation rates is that once students reach the postsecondary level, many of them are unprepared for the coursework and rigor that is expected from them. For example, in 2016 it was estimated that 56% of African American college freshman and 45% of Latino college freshman enrolled in English or math remedial courses that cover fundamentals that should have been learned in high school (Complete College America, 2016; Jimenez et al., 2016). What is surprising is that these courses not only increase the time needed to graduate, but also yield a completion rate close to 10% (National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, 2010). Therefore, not only do college remedial courses increase the length of time spent in college but they also decrease the likelihood that a student will graduate. Critically, these remedial courses are estimated to cost students and families across the U.S approximately $1.3 Billion every year (Jimenez et al., 2016). In sum, remedial education offered within the postsecondary system is not cost effective and actively hampers college graduation. The high frequency in which remedial courses are taken demonstrates that college readiness within our high schools must be improved and, therefore, investigation of interventions aimed at increasing college and career readiness is warranted.
The literature on college and career readiness suggests that the use of career academies, or small learning-based communities that endow students with transferable skills for both academics and the workforce, is a promising route (Kemple & Willner, 2008; Fernandez & Sun, 2015; Sun & Spinney, 2017). The use of career academies to create pathways for success has a rich history when examining benefits to students’ labor market outcome and employability after high school (Kemple & Willner, 2008; Symonds, Schwartz, & Ferguson, 2011). For example, Kemple and Willner (2008) showed that individuals who participated in a career academy during high school earned an average income that was 17% more than their non-academy counterparts over an eight-year period. The effectiveness of career academies on college readiness, however, has only recently been suggested (Brathwaite & Barnett, In Press). Specifically, a recent survey study conducted with 148 alumni of various NAF career academies indicated that 93% of respondents felt they were able to succeed when beginning postsecondary studies. Furthermore, Brathwaite and Barnett (In Press) indicated that the number of remedial college courses taken by academy alumni was lower than the national average. Even though the Brathwaite and Barnett study is correlational and must be replicated with larger samples before being generalized to all career academy programs, it suggests that participation in a high school career academy facilitates a pathway to college readiness.
Given the importance of both high school and college education in today’s labor market, as well as the monetary and time investment required for remedial education within the postsecondary system, a few key research questions regarding college and career readiness must be addressed within the next 10 years if the U.S. is to remain a leader in the global economy: 1) what actions can be done at the high-school level to ensure students are prepared for the rigors of postsecondary studies; 2) what is the performance of these students once they enter the postsecondary system; and 3) what are the labor market outcomes of these students?
Why does it matter? What scientific discoveries, innovations, and desired societal outcomes might result from investment in this area?
College and career readiness are two areas of increasing importance for today’s youth and have significant impacts on long-term life and labor market prospects. Ensuring that every high school student in the U.S. is college and career ready is essential to producing a skilled workforce large enough to fill the jobs of tomorrow. This is an important topic to address over the next 10 years because the need for college-educated workers is predicted to increase and will become exponentially more difficult to address. To put the growing need for college achievement into perspective, nearly 40% of the U.S. labor market in 1973 had not progressed beyond a high school diploma and 33% consisted of high school dropouts, totaling to 73% of the workforce not being college educated (Symonds et al., 2011). The importance of college achievement has changed dramatically over the subsequent years as 66% of the U.S labor market in 2016 had some form of college education (Brundage, 2016). The need to be college ready is also reflected in raw job growth. Specifically, more than 63 million jobs were created between 1973 and 2007, however, the number of jobs available to individuals with no postsecondary education actually decreased by 2 million during this time (Symonds et al., 2011). Lastly, the need for improved college readiness is apparent due to the high rate of college dropout in the U.S., which is higher than any other industrialized country in the world (Hess, 2017; Symonds et al., 2011). In sum, the impact of a college education on career potential has increased dramatically and indicates that education beyond high school is needed to be successful in today’s labor market.
With an active research agenda focusing on how pathways from high school to college are better developed and implemented, measures at the local, state, and federal levels can be taken to ensure that high school students are prepared for college enrollment and workforce employment. The desired societal outcome is that all high school students in the U.S. are prepared for college and a career after graduation. The short-term goal of such research is to inform policy makers, educators, community leaders, and businesses alike how to best implement effective pathways from high school to college. The long-term goal of this research is to reduce the economic loss that would result as a function of the U.S. labor market not having enough college-educated workers. Active research in this area would likely lead to increased utilization of career academies that specifically target students at risk of not graduating high school and gather data on their college performance. This would be a step in a positive direction because career academies have been shown to increase students’ labor market outcomes and are associated with improved college readiness. Additionally, active research in this area would likely lead to educational and policy changes contributing to a lack of college and career readiness.
If we invest in this area, what would success look like?
Success would manifest in two key components: 1) the identification of programs and interventions that contribute to high school students’ college and career readiness; and 2) extension of these programs and interventions to wide-spread utilization by schools, communities, and businesses. The identification of programs and interventions that facilitate college and career readiness will be the primary concern of this research during its initial stages. It is suggested that career academies are a viable route to college and career readiness, but it is not well understood exactly what components or experiences encompassed within these career academies are most effective or if the entire academy model is needed to achieve the desired outcomes (Brathwaite & Barnett, In Press; Kemple & Willner, 2008). Identifying key components that facilitate college and career readiness is needed before any targeted programs or interventions can be proposed and implemented.
Once critical factors contributing to college and career readiness have been identified, targeted high school and university programs can be developed and tested. It is difficult at this time to speculate what these targeted programs would entail, but they would likely follow a career academy model, which has been demonstrated to have a positive impact on students’ labor market outcomes and is associated with college readiness. Furthermore, community and corporate collaborations with high schools and universities would likely manifest due to these initiatives and provide a seamless support network for young students who need to become college and career ready. This would allow outcome variables related to the effectiveness of the proposed readiness programs to be assessed once the students enter college.
Why is this the right time to invest in this area?
Now is the time to invest because the problem will only become exponentially more difficult to address as time goes on. A college degree is much more likely to be attained if a student, especially if the student belongs to a minority group, is college ready. As data on the U.S. labor market indicates, a college education is becoming an increasingly important aspect of one’s level of employability. Without improvements to college and career readiness, the U.S. is projected to suffer from a shortage of qualified workers by 2030. In the STEM field alone, this shortage of workers is estimated to cost $435.69 billion in stunted economic growth and threatens the position of the U.S. as a leader in the global economy (Korn Ferry Institute, 2018). This requires immediate attention because programs meant to endow young people with skills relevant for college and their subsequent careers require many years to research, implement, and execute.
References
Brathwaite, J., & Barnett, E. A. (In Press). NAF Alumni Experiences with College and Career Readiness. Community College Research Center: New York.
Jimenez, L., Sargrad, S., Morales, J., & Thompson, M. (2016). Remedial Education - The Cost of Catching Up.
Kemple, J. J., & Willner, C. J. (2008). Career academies: Long-term impacts on labor market outcomes, educational attainment, and transitions to adulthood. New York, NY: MDRC.
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