Dive Brief:
- While 66% of high school students from middle-income families say educators heavily emphasized four-year college when talking about future pathways, far fewer reported similar attention to community college (11%), technical training and apprenticeships (16%) and full-time work (17%), according to a Rand Corp. report released Monday.
- Some 70% of students seeking bachelor’s degrees or higher said their school is doing better than OK in helping them plan for the future, but only about 50% of students not seeking a bachelor’s degree said the same.
- The survey found that schools most often provide work-related learning through coursework and career and technical education, but apprenticeships and internship opportunities are rare. These differences come even as the labor market for young adults shifts and as CTE gains traction across federal and state governments and localities.
Dive Insight:
Small portions of students said the information their school provides “very much” matches their family’s financial situation. Just 21% of students from families making below $75,000 a year said the information provided to them “very much” matches their family’s financial situation, and only 27% of families earning more than $150,000 said the same.
"Districts should be communicating more clearly to students about how to pursue other pathways, including 2-year college and technical and career training, if those best fits their interests or family financial circumstances," said Benjamin Master, senior policy researcher at Rand Corp., in an email to K-12 Dive.
By spring of their junior year, more than 4 in 10 students said they had yet to make a post-graduation plan or meet with their counselors about it.
At the same time, while students have goals related to work-related learning, they lag on their follow-through. By spring of their senior year, only 39% of high school students reported visiting an employer or workplace — even though 71% had planned to do so. And while 66% had plans to participate in an internship or apprenticeship, only 22% followed through.
The report also found that most principals (87%) have targets set for meeting milestones, like students completing at least one college career-preparation activity. However, fewer set targets for outcomes: Only 32% had a numeric target for students accepted into college, and 15% had a goal for students accepting part-time or full-time jobs following high school graduation.
Educators in rural districts may also prioritize early career awareness more than their urban and suburban counterparts, the Rand report said, as rural districts were significantly more likely to engage middle schoolers in developing written plans about their futures.
“School supports are most-heavily geared toward supporting four-year college pathways, yet many students who plan to attend college do not follow through on essential early steps,” the report said. “Other pathways receive substantially less emphasis, and students who are not interested in pursuing a four-year degree rate their school’s guidance significantly worse than their peers. These gaps are particularly concerning in light of broader shifts in the post-high school landscape.”
The Rand report is based on three nationally representative surveys that drew on separate samples of district leaders, school principals and students. All three surveys were administered during the 2025-26 school year.
The findings come as confidence in four-year college degrees wanes. Just 38% of U.S. adults reported having high confidence in higher education, down from 42% who said so last year, according to a July survey. Last year’s 42% was the first time confidence in higher education had increased in a decade, an increase that was short-lived.
In 2024, just 45% of high school students saw two- and four-year colleges as their most likely next step following graduation, down from 73% in 2018.
However, even as career and technical education is emphasized in this shifting landscape, districts’ CTE programs still face numerous challenges.
According to a YouScience report released earlier this year, 40% of CTE programs struggle to find partnerships with employers, 66% of CTE leaders say students lack awareness of their options, and 57% said CTE programs still face significant bias and misconceptions.
