Working to Learn

Disrupting the Divide Between College and Career Pathways for Young People

Noel S. Anderson, Lisette Nieves

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9783030353506
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Administración de la educación

This book disrupts the false dichotomy of college versus career by showing how young people and the programs created to serve them integrate the worlds of college and career readiness as students work to learn against the odds and strive toward lives that matter to them. Work-based learning at each stage of the K–college experience is crucial to the development of young people. Through analysis of national policies on college readiness and work-based learning, as well as through illustrative case studies of young people in work-based learning programs, the authors highlight the programs, voices, and experiences of young people from middle school through college. Through interviews, participating students share their views, aspirations, and preparation for both college and career.

© The Author(s) 2020

N. S. Anderson, L. NievesWorking to Learnhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35350-6_1

Begin Abstract

1. “College for All” and Work-Based Learning: Two Reconcilable Differences

Noel S. Anderson¹ and Lisette Nieves¹

(1)

Administration, Leadership and Technology, New York University, New York, NY, USA

Noel S. Anderson (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Lisette Nieves

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

We, the people of the United States, are in a college- and career-readiness crisis. Over the last few decades, while college access has expanded for many more individuals, federal student loan debt held by U.S. adults has ballooned to $1.5 trillion and approximately $119 billion for private loans, respectively, and college persistence and completion rates are not where they should be, given the level of personal and financial sacrifice of college goers (Miller, Campbell, Cohen, & Hancock, 2019). Approximately 76% of students complete four-year private colleges and 65.7% complete four-year public colleges. But when you look at two-year public college completion rates, numbers fall to just 39.2%, and the completion rate for four-year private for-profit colleges is at 37.3% (Shapiro et al., 2018).

Examining these numbers according to racial and ethnic groups, Asian students have the highest overall completion rate at 70.3%, white students complete at a rate of 67.1%, Black students at 41%, and Latinx students at 49.6% (Shapiro et al., 2018)¹. But looking closely at two-year institutions (known primarily as community colleges ), where the vast majority of Black and Latinx students enroll, the completion rate of Asian students was 49.1%, white students was 48.1%, Latinx students was 35.7%, and Black students was trailing at 27.5% (Shapiro et al., 2018).

Coupled with this college pipeline crisis is an alarmingly high youth unemployment rate. Nationwide, the youth unemployment rate for 16–24-year-olds is 9.1% (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2019). For Blacks between the ages of 16 and 24, it is approximately 14.6%, nearly double the rate for non-Hispanic whites at 8% (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2019). For Latinx in this age group, it is slightly above 11% (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2019). Lack of employment is leaving young people without the early work experiences that research shows is crucial to their success as adults. This crisis is more acute for Black and Latinx young people, who tend to be the most under-credentialed and unemployed in this nation. Without the skills from successful college and early work experiences, young adults are ill-prepared to succeed in our labor market, unable to contribute to our economy in meaningful ways, and risk not having sustainable wages to live the lives that they would have reason to value. The map below, for instance, shows how youth unemployment is a regional affair. The access of young people to work is shaped by industry and geography (Fig. 1.1).

Fig. 1.1

Youth unemployment, state by state, ages 16–24. (Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016)

The Rise of “Middle Skills” Jobs

As this crisis grows, automation and other technological advancements are transforming middle-skill jobs. “Middle-skills” is defined as jobs requiring a minimum of a high school diploma, some postsecondary credential, usually an associate’s degree or equivalent, but not necessarily a four-year degree. In 2015, 53% of jobs in the United States were defined as “middle-skills,” a number that will reduce only slightly to 48% by 2024 (National Skills Coalition, 2017). Alarmingly, while low-skills jobs and high-skills jobs have an abundance of available labor, middle-skills jobs are outpacing their available workforce, meaning fewer Americans are trained than there are jobs available in these industries.

According to the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce, “all of the growth of net new good jobs in the non-BA economy has been in middle-skills jobs ” (Carnevale, Strohl, Ridley, & Gulish, 2018). Half of all middle-skills jobs are considered “good jobs,” with high and stable median incomes for those with or without a bachelor’s degree. Careers in blue-collar industries, like advanced manufacturing, transportation and utilities, and construction, along with jobs in skilled service industries like financial services, education, and hospitality are on the rise. An aging population and a booming tech industry have surged the need for skilled and credentialed healthcare technicians, computer programmers, surveying and mapping technicians, and IT personnel (Carnevale et al., 2018). But, according to a report by Burning Glass, Accenture , and Harvard Business School , the strongest middle-skills jobs in terms of long-term job skills sustainability are in technical sales and sales management, computer and mathematical occupations (IT specialists, advanced manufacturing), business and financial services (bookkeeping, HR specialists, auditing clerks), and healthcare practitioners and technical occupations (Fuller, Burrowes, Raman, Restuccia, & Young, 2014).

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the top five fastest-growing professions over the next ten years will be in middle-skills jobs including (from first to fifth in ranking): solar photovoltaic (PV) installers, wind turbine service technicians, home healthcare aides, personal care aides, and occupational therapy assistants (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2019). It is important to note that these statistics reflect the whole of the United States, while job availability and industry growth vary region by region (Fig. 1.2).

Fig. 1.2

Tech job growth, state by state. (Source: The Computing Technology Industry Association, 2019)

For example, the map above displays changes in tech employment state by state, demonstrating the regions (West Coast, Southeast) where availability of middle-skills jobs in this high-growth industry lay.

Yet young people are still confined to low-wage, low-skilled work at the highest risk for automation and, ultimately, job elimination (Fig. 1.3).

Fig. 1.3

Highest industry employment for youth, state by state, ages 16–24. (Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2019)

Even as middle-skills, high-growth industries and jobs—predominantly in manufacturing, technology, and healthcare—are giving rise to new labor opportunities, workforce training and postsecondary institutions are finding challenges in preparing and delivering workers for this demand . A gulf is widening in the workforce between those who receive the necessary education, training, or retraining needed to fill positions and those who are forced toward a decreasing pool of lower-wage, low-skills work. The other challenge is that employers have six million open jobs they are struggling to fill in the United States alone, leaving well-paying jobs without the requisite talent (Engler, Pritzker, Alden, & Taylor-Kale, 2018). Nearly half of American small businesses report not being able to find qualified workers for their open positions (Rampell, 2016). Further , young people who seek to fill these jobs experience unclear educational pathways and credentialing systems, as well as large price tags on postsecondary programs.

Root Causes of the College- and Career-Readiness Crisis

There are root causes of the college- and career-readiness crisis. First, many of our current challenges can be traced to the fact that our education systems were created for a different type of American economy and labor market than the current one. Second, deepening socioeconomic inequalities, such as poor K-12 secondary school systems and labor market discrimination , have created new barriers that stand in the way of large swaths of young people achieving success.

Finally, the decades-long public tensions between the “College for All” consensus and “School-to-Work” (STW) campaign illustrate well-intentioned but misguided understandings about the relationship between education and employment on the part of educators and public policymakers, which has created additional barriers to solving this crisis. Consequently, in our typical zero-sum approach to educational policymaking in the United States and our attempts to distance ourselves from “the soft bigotry of low expectations,” the College for All consensus eclipsed the School-to-Work campaign, forcing policymakers and educators to slow down the promise and progress of work-based learning.

Outdated and Outpaced Education Systems

There is a clear mismatch in how our education systems are preparing young people to meet the current demands of the labor market. Far too few young people are attaining the skills that will allow them to be successful in the labor market , as is clear from the simple fact that the unemployment rate for young adults remains twice what it is for adults; in August 2019, the unemployment rate was 9.1% for those ages 16 to 24 and just 3% for those ages 25 and older (U.S. Department of Labor, 2019a). The reason for this mismatch owes much to the fact that our systems for preparing young people to succeed are out of date (Alonso, Anderson, Su, & Theoharis, 2009 ; Anderson & Kharem, 2010). At risk is the long-term competitiveness of our nation’s economy. We need to make fundamental changes to our systems of public education in order to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.

Our economy and labor market have changed significantly and demand more skills than ever. The days when a high school ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. “College for All” and Work-Based Learning: Two Reconcilable Differences
• 2. The Apprenticeship: A Bipartisan Model of Opportunity
• 3. “I Am Working and Learning”: Expanding Freedoms to Achieve Through Summer Youth Employment
• 4. Hearing from the Voices Behind the Variables: Community College Students Speak Out on School and Work
• 5. A Way Forward: Building Career and Postsecondary Pathways
• Back Matter