Fresh paths to success
Call it the American fantasy. For years, people have believed that a college degree provided the only safe path to achieving middle-class security and a stable career, and the nation’s high schools have been shaped to fit the idea that all young people could and should go to college. The facts tell a different story: Only three in 10 young people earn a bachelor’s degree by their mid-20s, while more than 40 percent never even set foot on a community college or university campus. For the majority of young people who never earn a post-secondary degree, the American dream remains just that. The problem, three Harvard analysts say in a new report called “Pathways to Prosperity,” is that high schools don’t offer alternatives that prepare students to enter the working world, rather than four more years in a classroom. And while the new public education system they’re advocating — one that offers...