The country finds itself debating what happens to young people after 12th grade. Is college worth it? Should high schoolers skip it for an apprenticeship? Is college still the ticket to the middle class or a debt trap dressed up as opportunity?
A new report from the American Academy of Arts & Sciences characterizes our times as “a moment of great national debate about the journeys people make after they receive their high school diploma.” What makes this contribution to that debate worth taking seriously isn’t that it settles the argument, but who is making it, and how.
Thriving After High School: Community, School, Service, and Work is the product of the Academy’s Commission on Opportunities After High School. Thirty leaders from K-12 and higher education, business, service, and philanthropy worked together for two years.
It’s worth pausing to consider where this cross-partisan report comes from, because that context changes how it should be read.
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is one of the country’s oldest and most rarefied institutions. John Adams and a small circle of the nation’s founders founded it in 1780. Today, it includes roughly 4500 Fellows chosen by nomination and election. Its focus is on the humanities, the sciences, and elevated scholarly inquiry. Historically, it hasn’t spent much time on questions like return on investment (ROI) or job placement rates.
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The complete article is online at Washington Monthly.