“Many Gen Z teens don’t feel career ready. What if we made students aware of all of the many options available to them early on, starting in middle school (or even sooner)?”
That’s the challenge for K-12 career education presented by the authors of a report entitled Success Redefined issued by American Student Assistance and Jobs for the Future. The report is based on a Morning Consult poll of over 1,100 high school graduates who opted not to go to college directly after high school.
Nearly one out of three non-college youth (32%) reports a lack confidence in knowing the steps to take to transition into a post-high school career and further education. Two out of three (64%) who did not take career pathway programs say they would have considered pathway programs if they knew more about them.
The barriers to not pursuing pathway programs include a lack of encouragement from those at school to explore them. The preferred sources of information for the post-high school plans of non-college youth were searching the web (87%) and watching online videos (81%).
