Every fall, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) publishes the closest thing the world has to an annual report card on education. The latest edition, Education at a Glance 2026, covers a wide range of topics, from how systems are structured, financed, and perform to its special focus on teacher shortages and how countries respond. It also includes a section that follows students after they leave high school, asking how far they went, whether they found work, what they earn, and what they can actually do.
The headline news is encouraging. In the United States, the share of 18- to 24-year-olds who were neither working nor in school or training fell to 14 percent in 2025, down from 16 percent a decade earlier. Some 52 percent of American adults ages 25 to 64 hold an associate degree or higher, above the OECD average of 43 percent. More young people are connected to something after high school than they were ten years ago.
But the averages hide a sorting that begins on graduation day. Among Americans ages 18 to 24, 46 percent are enrolled in some form of education, 39 percent are working and not in school, and 14 percent are doing neither. For those whose high school diploma is their final credential, the labor market is unforgiving.
