The Data: An Inadequate American System

The American commitment to “College for All” has been an unmitigated disaster for the majority of young people for whom a traditional college campus is not, in fact, the right next stop after completing high school. Perhaps the best way to see this is to follow a representative cohort of students through the high-school-to-college-to-career pipeline and recognize that the vast majority fall out along the way.

For every 100 American students, only 86 will complete high school on time.

Of the 86 who earn their high school diploma, only 39 go directly to four-year colleges and 15 to two-year colleges. 

Of the 54 who enroll in college, only 30 will complete their degree within 150% of the expected time.

Of the 30 who complete, only 17 will find a job that requires a degree.

We can call these 17 students the “Fortunate Fifth,” for whom the system appears to be working as intended and delivering the results promised. But what does the system offer the 14 who cannot complete high school, the 32 who complete high school but do not go on to college, the 24 who cannot complete college, and the 13 who find their college degree was not worth what they expected? All of them would have been better served by access to other high-quality career pathways, yet few exist, and they receive a minuscule fraction of the hundreds of billions of public dollars dedicated each year to the conventional pipeline. 

For young men, especially, the situation has become dire. Their outcomes are worse at every stage of the conventional pipeline, and their earnings have now stagnated for half a century. Research published by the American Enterprise Institute’s Scott Winship in 2022 found that men between the ages of 25 and 29 earned lower compensation in 2020 than in 1970, both pre- and post-tax. 

The education system is not entirely at fault. Broader economic trends have created a labor market poorly matched to the focus on college completion. From 2000 to 2019, the number of college graduates in the labor market increased more than twice as fast as the number of jobs requiring college degrees. Meanwhile, the nation has faced increasing shortages in a range of essential jobs for which other forms of preparation are more appropriate.

If there is good news, it is that the American people have comprehended the challenge—and the opportunity—much better than their leaders. Politicians have long believed that you can speak about pathways besides college in theory, but you cannot move funding away from college in practice, or tell parents that their own children might be better off elsewhere. Similarly, conventional wisdom has held that you cannot embrace “tracking,” which would place students on different pathways during high school, better preparing them for a next step but potentially limiting their options. 

In fact, American parents care far more about whether public education equips their children with the skills and values to build decent lives than about whether it prepares them for college. They support tracking overwhelmingly, by margins rarely seen in public polling. And they would rather have their own child receive a three-year apprenticeship that leads to a good job than a free ride to any college that will admit him. 

In partnership with YouGov, American Compass asked 1,000 parents what they saw as the more important purpose of public education, offering two options:

1. Help students develop the skills and values needed to build decent lives in the communities where they live.

2. Help students maximize their academic potential and pursue admission to colleges and universities with the best possible reputations.

More than 70% of parents selected the first option, and that preference held across classes.

The survey also asked parents whether they supported tracking in high school. The survey also asked parents whether they supported tracking in high school. Half were shown the term “tracking” and half the term “diverse pathways” to test whether their reaction to the concept differed from their reaction to the term.

The survey explained: “Most people would agree that schools should treat students fairly and give them all the best possible chance at success. But people often disagree about how to do that. Some believe that schools should use ‘[tracking / diverse pathways]’ to offer students different pathways based on their aptitudes and interests. Others reject the idea of [tracking / diverse pathways] and say that schools should set a goal of bringing all students along to the same end point, which is typically preparation for college.”

It then offered two options:

1. High schools should try to keep all students on the same [track / pathway] and in the same courses, with a goal of preparing all students for college. 

2. High schools should offer families different [tracks / pathways] to choose from, which would place their children in different courses. For instance, one track might focus on college preparation, while another would focus on technical skills and workplace experience.

Parents preferred tracking by more than six-to-one, with no difference in response to the terms “tracking” and “diverse pathways.” Analysis of public opinion surveys typically takes for granted that some small share of respondents will randomly choose any option. The 86% support for tracking overall, and especially the 94% in the middle class, essentially represents unanimity.

But do Americans like non-college career pathways in theory, or would they But do Americans like non-college career pathways in theory, or would they actually choose one for their own children? The survey put this question to families directly, asking, “If policymakers would have created, or would create, one of the following options for your child upon their graduation from high school, which do you most wish would have been, or would be, available?”

The options offered were:

1. 3-year apprenticeship program after high school that would lead to a valuable credential and a well-paying job.

2. Full-tuition scholarship to any college or university that your child was admitted to.

Most parents preferred a 3-year apprenticeship, with preferences especially strong among lower- and working-class families that had lower levels of educational attainment and income themselves. Even middle class families leaned slightly toward the apprenticeship.

Such results surprise most American policymakers. But they are common sense everywhere else in the developed world, where the folly of the American obsession with college is well understood. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reports that every single member country but one places a substantial share of upper secondary school students on non-college pathways, with most placing at least 40% of students there. The single outlier, of course, is the United States. We are so far outside the norm that we are excluded from the data entirely and consigned to a footnote.

An education and workforce development system offering a robust range of career pathways is not magic, it is table stakes around the globe. And as this report shows, it exists in the United States too. Our failure has been in consigning it to the margins, depriving it of resources, and promoting a culture that treats every option except college as inferior. These case studies show the way toward a better model for American students and workers.