A Letter from the President of the American Academy
The Questions Before Us
Thriving After High School, from the Academy’s Commission on Opportunities After High School, arrives at a moment of great national debate about the journeys people make after they receive their high school diploma.
The United States remains a nation defined by innovation, talent, and ambition. But today, our educational systems may not be able to take advantage of those qualities. As people build their educational pathways, too many find themselves with questions they cannot answer and futures they cannot determine: Is college worth it? What does learning look like in the age of AI? How much work experience should people have as they continue to learn? How could a period of service fit into a plan that includes future education? What is the best age for people to acquire a postsecondary degree and what patterns are we seeing? How do people coordinate a dual commitment to college and to their communities?
We know students and families question whether education will open doors, or whether the systems around them are designed to support their success, because we asked. Thriving After High School includes the voices of students themselves and responds to what we heard at listening sessions across the country.
In response to these conversations, the Academy challenged the Commission on Opportunities After High School to address the obstacles students face in choosing their postsecondary paths and securing fulfilling livelihoods. We recognized that learners were confronting more than a workforce or education challenge; they were confronting a broken social contract.
What Distinguishes Our Work
But Thriving After High School is not just a critique. Nor does it represent a “side” in the myriad debates that have emerged in our national discourse. Rather, it is a document of deliberation, consensus, and best practices across the country.
This report grew from the deliberations of a national group of leaders who met together for two years and found common ground about one of the most important things we can do in a democracy—educate the next generation. Our leaders were K–12 superintendents, leaders of service organizations, community college administrators, economic researchers, college presidents, philanthropists, and businesspeople. They were from Texas and New York, Minnesota and Colorado, Indiana and Massachusetts, and a host of other places. They were united by a wish for students to pursue meaningful education and work, where they obtained credentials of value, valuable service opportunities, community connections, and the ability to pursue their goals.
Our commissioners recognized that students deserve multiple high-quality routes to success, including apprenticeships, community colleges, four-year colleges and universities, military service, service-year programs, short-term workforce training and industry-valued credentials, and other forms of lifelong learning that reflect the realities of today’s economy and the aspirations of today’s learners. And our commissioners also knew that the work of coordinating these commitments and values would not be easy. It would involve listening to one another, asking questions, resolving disagreements, and reaching consensus on how best to support students in this most difficult of times.
Thriving After High School is that hard-won consensus of practitioners from different sectors, political and educational ideologies, and socioeconomic contexts. It is a mark of hope that Americans can come together on behalf of all learners to create strategies to address fundamental educational issues of our time.
The Commission’s recommendations promote policies and practices that facilitate collaboration across the education and workforce ecosystem to support these pathways, enabling the full participation of our diverse talent pool in our dynamic global economy and democratic society. This Commission urges action, by individuals and institutions, but more importantly by coalitions of leaders and stakeholders across traditional silos who are committed to improving the lives of their neighbors and helping their communities thrive.
Our Connection to the Life of Our Nation
This work is deeply connected to our broader mission as an organization committed to strengthening American constitutional democracy. The Academy’s 2020 publication Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century called for the strengthening of America’s institutions and civic culture. The Academy’s 2023 publication Advancing a People-First Economy examined the intersection of the economy and democracy. A healthy democracy depends on citizens who are prepared to participate fully in civic life, just as a strong economy depends on workers who can adapt and contribute across changing industries and labor market realities.
Educational pathways after high school sit at the center of both democratic and economic goals and inspired the formation of this Commission on Opportunities After High School. When students can access meaningful opportunities for learning, skill development, and civic formation, they are better equipped to build stable livelihoods and to engage as active members of society. Expanding these pathways is therefore not simply an education policy imperative; it is central to the future of our civic, democratic, and economic institutions.
Not Just a Report: Stories, Maps, and a Call to Build Beyond Silos
To bring life to these words on a page, this Commission has also developed some exciting online products (at www.amacad.org/opportunities) to highlight promising practices around the country and illustrate the multiple pathways that learners take after high school. I invite you to explore the map of promising practices to find inspiration for a program or policy that you could implement in your own community. I also suggest you navigate the learner pathways to hear from students about the barriers they face and see how our recommendations can smooth transitions. No single institution can accomplish this work alone.
Creating real opportunity for students and fostering resilient, durable skills requires K–12 schools, colleges and universities, employers, workforce systems, state and local governments, philanthropy, and community organizations to move beyond isolated efforts and toward genuine collaboration. Too often, these systems operate in silos, leaving students to navigate fragmented pathways without clear guidance or support. We must instead build a coordinated ecosystem in which responsibility is shared, outcomes are aligned, and learners are surrounded by a community of support from high school through service, college, training, and career. The Commission, this publication, and the online complement are rooted in the recognition that by working together across sectors and systems, we can create a future in which every student has the opportunity not only to succeed but to truly thrive.
Gratitude
The Academy launched this Commission in May 2024, and I assumed the presidency of the Academy in January 2025. I would like to thank my predecessor President Emeritus David Oxtoby for shaping the initial formation of the Commission. Special thanks to the Commission Cochairs, Nancy Cantor, Harrison Keller, and Bridget Long. My gratitude to all of the multidisciplinary members of the Commission who brought their expertise from K–12 and higher education, workforce development and business, philanthropy and nonprofits, medicine, service, and the arts, reflecting the breadth of the Academy’s membership, and engaged in rigorous debates throughout our work together.
Thank you to the listening session and expert roundtable participants who inspired and informed many of the Commission’s recommendations. Of course, I would like to thank my Academy colleagues who staffed the Commission: Molly Kent, Pamela Taylor, and Catherine Van Ness; our publications team: Phyllis Bendell, Scott Raymond, Maya Robinson, and Peter Walton; our communications team: Josh Breeden and Alison Franklin; Peter Robinson for his leadership; and Melissa Chan, Lywana Dorzilor, and Kimberlee Eberle-Sudré, who previously supported the Commission’s work.
Finally, my gratitude to the individuals and foundations who made this Commission possible: Andrew Carnegie Foundation, formerly Carnegie Corporation of New York, Robert and Elizabeth Pozen, Spencer Foundation, William T. Grant Foundation, and an anonymous supporter.
It is time to work together. We invite you to consider, and to build with us, the paths for the learners of tomorrow.
Laurie L. Patton
Cambridge, MA