By Bruno Manno
The U.K.’s Labour Party recently won an overwhelming victory in the country’s general parliamentary election. Its five-part policy platform contained a commitment to break down barriers to opportunity, including creating diverse education and training pathways so individuals can have an alternative to the college-degree pathway to jobs and opportunity. Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. have proposed similar measures at the national, state, and local levels. This approach is encouraging since it could hold the key to developing the types of pathways needed to ensure that young people and workers acquire the knowledge, skills, and social connections they need for upward mobility and prosperity. I call this “opportunity pluralism.”
Vice President Kamala Harris recently described America’s current pathways problem, and what a better approach could look like: “For far too long, our nation has encouraged only one path to success: a four-year college degree. Our nation needs to recognize the value of other paths, additional paths, such as apprenticeships and technical programs.” This issue can unite Democrats and Republicans, as recent proposals make clear.
While education governance in the U.S. is more decentralized than in the U.K., American policymakers should recognize the appeal of this approach and look to the U.K. example to inform how the U.S. pursues opportunity pluralism.
