Executive Summary
In the United States today, some form of education or training after high school is increasingly necessary for thriving in adulthood. This builds upon decades of growing demand for skills as technological advancements and an increasingly complex world have heightened the need for learners of all ages to seek further education. And yet many struggle to navigate our education and workforce systems as they shape their lives and contribute to their communities. While a postsecondary degree continues to be a strong path to economic and social mobility, concerning signs indicate that traditional college degree programs, especially given current structural and financial barriers, don’t translate into opportunities for every learner to earn a self-sustaining wage and lead a fulfilling life.
We seek to support learners of all ages to build lives and communities that thrive, not just survive.
What is needed is a collaborative ecosystem of education, workforce, and community partners. Together, we must provide many on-ramps and pathways to prosperity while helping learners to develop the knowledge, competencies, and skills that will allow them to adapt to the rapidly changing labor market and world. The needs and strengths of learners should be at the center of policy development and program design to expand and make more accessible the American Dream of economic and social mobility. We also need to combat perceptions that there is only one way to pursue higher education and broaden initiatives that assume a one-size-fits-all approach. A variety of valuable education and training options are, and must be, available when referring to opportunities after high school, higher education, or postsecondary pathways, including two-year and four-year institutions of higher education, apprenticeships, workforce development programs, service-year opportunities, and military service. College is also more than solely attaining a credential or spending a certain amount of time in a program of study; learners gain valuable durable skills, civic competencies, and social capital that prepare them to be resilient and thrive in adulthood.
Thriving After High School: Community, School, Service, and Work is the report produced by the Commission on Opportunities After High School. The members of the multidisciplinary and cross-partisan Commission bring expertise from K–12 and higher education, workforce development and business, philanthropy and nonprofits, medicine, military service and service programs, and the arts. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences convened the Commission to address the challenges students face in choosing their postsecondary paths and securing fulfilling livelihoods.
Thriving After High School argues that systemic barriers must be removed to grow multiple routes to and supports for lifelong learning opportunities that will open doors for currently underserved yet richly talented individuals, ensuring success for all. This report is published in conjunction with an online resource (at www.amacad.org/opportunities) illustrating the multiple postsecondary paths that individuals may take and a map highlighting promising practices across the country that help show the way forward.
The Commission’s recommendations define a set of goals, levers, policies, and practices that aim to improve the accessibility, quality, and impact of multiple pathways to thriving in adulthood, enabling the full participation of America’s diverse talent pool in our dynamic global economy and democratic society.
First, we emphasize the need to facilitate collaboration across the typical silos in education and workforce systems. As high school graduates, college learners, military veterans, and workers face an uncertain labor market, it is more crucial than ever to remove structural and systemic barriers to opportunity and provide a range of options for postsecondary education and training. As workers aim to progress in rapidly changing workplaces in the face of technological advances, demographic shifts, and a complex global economy, educators and employers must continue to partner to maximize the opportunities and impact of lifelong learning. To better serve today’s learners, educational institutions, employers, service programs, and communities need to adapt to support multiple pathways.
Opportunities for thriving should include personal advancement alongside economic and social mobility and civic engagement. Policymakers, education leaders, employers, philanthropists, and communities across the United States must come together to meet this moment.
In a quickly evolving global economy, the Commission also emphasizes that learners and workers must have a strong foundation of both technical and durable skills to meet employer standards and needs and to build meaningful careers. Today’s learners will graduate into a country that is diverse by many measures: socioeconomic status, geography, race, and ethnicity, to name but a few. In the context of increasing diversity and rapid technological advancement, including artificial intelligence (AI), learners need to bolster their ability to adapt and collaborate across differences, which is enabled by investing in these uniquely human skills. We aim to empower students as active, engaged members of society, focusing on a broad range of skills, including those relevant to the arts and humanities.
In the face of big dreams and systemic challenges, higher education and employers in all sectors need to evolve past a one-size-fits-all model to meet the needs of and better serve today’s learners. While a cohesive infrastructure and clear goals in terms of skills are the foundation for creating a better system, shaping a future where every student thrives means moving from theoretical opportunity to realized prosperity. Discussion of strategies for offering more opportunities to students is insufficient without also empowering them with the information, guidance, experiences, and opportunities to make the best choice for their path after high school graduation.
Government officials and education leaders at all levels must convene with employers and community leaders to define what thriving should look like for their learners, workers, and residents. This definition should serve as the North Star to which success metrics and target outcomes are aligned, including high school graduation requirements and measures of readiness for career, college, and service. Educational institutions play an integral role in preparing learners for the workforce and in developing their civic and durable skills, fostering the discovery of their strengths and interests, and providing opportunities for community service and engagement.
Finally, we acknowledge that learners cannot thrive when their basic needs are not met. Learners depend upon a range of supports, from school food pantries to accessible mental health care and quality advising aligned to their aspirations. To pursue their postsecondary path of choice, many learners also rely on financial support, which needs to be simplified and streamlined to open more doors for an expanded group of individuals throughout their lifelong learning journeys.
The Commission recognizes the historical context and past educational initiatives that have prompted the development of our current system. However, the continuing evolution of labor markets and society necessitates the creation of a new educational narrative, with clear goals and strategies to prepare individuals for thriving after high school. The Commission’s discussions were grounded in evidence of what has worked well and led to demonstrated improvements of learner outcomes. Further investment in proven strategies is worthwhile alongside reforms to systems that have, for too long, excluded large segments of our talented population from paths to thriving.
After nearly three years of discussions, dozens of listening sessions and expert roundtables, and the review of hundreds of policies and practices across the country, we put forth four strategies and ten recommendations that—taken together—can transform the education, workforce, and civic ecosystem to empower learners and strengthen individual and community prosperity.
Thriving After High School calls on government officials, K–12 and postsecondary education leaders, employers and industry groups, nonprofit organizations and communities, and philanthropists to:
Strategy 1: Build Alignment, Communication, and Coordination Across Systems and Sectors for Learner Success
Recommendation 1
Break down silos and build shared responsibility across education and workforce systems
Recommendation 2
Maximize existing resources to fund educational opportunities
Recommendation 3
Improve data collection and sharing at all levels for transparency
Strategy 2: Develop Skills for Educational and Workforce Success in a Changing World
Recommendation 4
Promote durable skills across the P-20 continuum
Recommendation 5
Validate and demonstrate essential knowledge and competencies
Strategy 3: Clarify and Grow Multiple Pathways to Postsecondary Opportunities to Empower Learner Choice
Recommendation 6
Expand awareness, exploration, and participation in activities connected to career, college, and service
Recommendation 7
Foster effective and efficient journeys to postsecondary thriving, including reengagement and nonlinear pathways
Strategy 4: Support Learner Thriving in Education, Work, and Life
Recommendation 8
Meet learners’ basic needs
Recommendation 9
Advise and mentor learners, alumni, and workers
Recommendation 10
Improve and expand access to financial aid
The Commission believes that to enhance American prosperity and ensure American competitiveness, the civic, education, and workforce systems must transform to create a collaborative ecosystem of multiple paths to thriving in adulthood and empower learners to choose the best postsecondary path for themselves. These strategies ensure that learners receive guidance throughout college, service, and work and that they continue to learn, earn industry-valued credentials, and advance civically, personally, and professionally.