The goal of schooling is to prepare students for life beyond high school, ensuring they have the skills, knowledge, and other foundational requirements to be self-supporting, earn a living wage, contribute to their communities, and build fulfilling lives. For decades, however, many schools have operated from a narrower assumption about how students should reach those goals: success after high school means attending a four-year college or university. Much of the high school experience reflects that presumption. Transcripts, course requirements, extracurricular activities, counseling structures, and even the language used to celebrate graduating seniors can reinforce a hierarchy in which acceptance to a four-year institution, sometimes even the perceived caliber of that institution, becomes a primary measure of postsecondary success.

The economy tells a more complicated story. Local communities depend on people with specialized, career-connected skills. Technicians, health care professionals, skilled tradespeople, early childhood educators, advanced manufacturing workers, and professionals across countless other fields provide essential services and support nearly every sector of the economy. At the same time, employers in many industries continue to need workers with the technical skills, credentials, and applied experience required to fill critical roles.

Making Room for More Postsecondary Pathways

Too many students, however, enter high school already assuming they are supposed to attend a four-year college. They may have few opportunities to ask whether that path aligns with their interests, preferred way of learning, career goals, or financial priorities. They may know relatively little about the careers accessible through certificates, associate degrees, apprenticeships, technical training, and other career-connected pathways. And they may make a college decision without fully understanding its cost or how that investment could affect their financial options for years to come.

Changing that dynamic requires moving beyond a four-year-college-or-failure mindset and giving students and their families who support them a fuller picture of what postsecondary success can look like. Community colleges and career and technical schools have an important role to play in this shift. By making the outcomes, opportunities, affordability, and flexibility of their programs more apparent, these institutions can help students, families, educators, and communities evaluate postsecondary options based on where they lead and how well they fit the individual student.

Tips for Helping Students and Families Understand the Value

For community colleges and career and technical schools, this means taking an active role helping students and families understand their postsecondary options. Many of the assumptions that influence students' decisions take hold well before they begin applying to programs, and those assumptions can persist when students and families have limited exposure to alternatives. Institutions can help change that by making career outcomes, costs, transfer opportunities, employer connections, and longer-term pathways easier to understand and compare. The goal is to give students and families the information they need to consider the full range of possibilities and make postsecondary decisions based on individual goals, interests, needs, and aspirations.  

• Market the value of career-connected programs. Community colleges and career and technical schools offer programs where students have opportunities to develop skills they can apply directly in their chosen fields. Within communications to students, families, and other stakeholders, highlight partnerships with area businesses, hands-on learning experiences, and opportunities to learn from professionals in the field. Emphasize how these programs connect learning to careers and can provide a more direct path to in-demand career fields.
• Highlight affordability as a key advantage. Community colleges and career and technical schools are most often significantly more affordable than four-year colleges. Within marketing materials, share average costs of tuition and highlight available scholarship and aid opportunities. Also highlight the potential return on investment by sharing average salaries after program completion. Consider providing side-by-side comparisons of average tuition costs and graduates’ starting salaries so students can better understand the value of community colleges and career and technical programs as affordable options for launching a career. 
• Share data that challenges outdated perceptions. There is a persistent misconception that community colleges and technical programs prepare students primarily for low-wage, low-skill jobs. Use employment rates, starting salaries, job growth projections, and other career-outcome data to demonstrate the opportunities these programs and pathways provide. Highlight programs that lead to high-wage careers and in-demand fields. Data provides evidence that works to shift misconceptions. This data can be especially valuable for juniors and seniors and their families as they apply to and make decisions about postsecondary options.
• Describe community college and technical programs as a first step in a postsecondary path. Sometimes, students and families are concerned that choosing a community college or a career and technical program will hinder a student’s potential. Help students and families to see these options as a first step on their path to a fulfilling career. Outline and share potential pathways that include transferring to a four-year institution to earn a bachelor’s degree, pursuing additional credentials or specialized training, or combining education and employment to build valuable skills over time. This can help students and families to better visualize how community college and technical programs can be a strategic first step to reaching longer-term goals. 
• Share success stories. Talk with students who have successfully completed programs and are employed within their field. Interview employers about the impact of these programs and the skills they see in graduates entering the workforce. By sharing the stories of graduates and employers, students, families, and the broader community can see how education at community colleges and career and technical schools provides students with the skills, knowledge, and experience needed for high-wage, high-skill careers.  
• Give families better questions to ask. When students and families are making decisions about a student’s next step, they can become overly focused on what others in the family have done, what choices peers are making, and what, historically, was described as the best option for graduating students. Helping students and families to shift their questions to be more personalized to the student can make for more meaningful and beneficial conversation. A focus on fit, absent any hierarchy in decision making, helps students and families to identify what is best for a particular student. Invite families to consider:
  
  • How do they learn best? 
  • What careers interest them?
  • What type of education or training can help them reach their goals?
  • What financial, geographic, or other variables should be considered? 
• Build community connections. Building a presence within a community can be one of the most effective ways to build awareness of the incredible learning opportunities available through community colleges and career and technical schools. Host events where educators and business partners can lead discussions on topics important to the community. Invite the community to attend student showcases and demonstrations. Partner with local businesses to highlight workforce partnerships and celebrate program milestones. Maintain a visible presence at area college fairs, community events, high school events, and anywhere students and families gather. The more opportunities that students have to see what is available, the greater their understanding of the value of these programs. 

Our Students Need Us to Do Better

Making the case for community college and career and technical education is only part of the work. These opportunities also need to reach students in the places where they are actively exploring careers and making decisions about what comes next. That means building strong relationships with high schools and ensuring programs are represented within the college and career readiness platforms students use to research careers, compare programs, and develop their postsecondary plans.

When community colleges and career and technical schools become part of the postsecondary ecosystem where high school students are exploring next steps, students gain more time to understand their options and identify pathways that align with their interests, goals, financial priorities, and vision for their future.