Robert B. Schwartz raised many eyebrows with a 2011 report that questioned the wisdom of the prevailing 鈥渃ollege for all鈥� ethic. The study made a plea for better options for students who didn鈥檛 want to pursue bachelor鈥檚 degrees, a notable shift in viewpoint for the Harvard education professor who had long supported the idea of making four-year degrees a goal for all students. In a joint project of Harvard and Jobs for the Future, Schwartz now co-leads the Pathways to Prosperity Network, a group of states working on career-focused options for young people. He details the first five years of that work in a new book, Learning For Careers. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
It鈥檚 been seven years since your report with Ron Ferguson, 鈥淧athways to Prosperity,鈥� questioned the 鈥渇our-year-degree for everyone鈥� movement. Why do you think this idea is getting so much attention right now?
First, there鈥檚 this continuing anxiety about the cost of four-year colleges and universities. And the economic returns to a four-year degree are no longer guaranteed.
It鈥檚 true that in the aggregate, the more education you have, the better off you are, but in this economy, the skills you have actually matter more than the number of years of education you have.
We鈥檙e seeing significant overlap in the earnings of people with two-year degrees鈥攑articularly two-year technical degrees that are aligned with the needs of the regional labor market鈥攁nd four-year-degree holders.
A second piece is that U.S. policymakers are noticing that other countries seem to get better results with well-structured programs that don鈥檛 rely on universities but on partnerships between employers and educators. I鈥檓 thinking of countries like Germany, Switzerland, Austria.
The third thing has been the revival of interest in apprenticeship.
The skills gap tends to be mentioned most often as the reason that our high schools should feel a sense of urgency in preparing students for the workforce. How big a role does the skills gap play in your thinking about why we need to do better with career preparation?
The skills gap is certainly an important driver here. But I begin with what鈥檚 best for young people. What the skills-gap argument suggests is that we need a better way to align our education system with the needs of a growing and dynamic economy.
But first and foremost for me is how do we get a much larger fraction of our young people to have the academic skills and work experience that can help them develop professional skills, and some technical skills, so they emerge by the age of 20 or 21 with some kind of a credential that has value in the labor market and they can get themselves launched?
We think a first postsecondary credential is critical. It鈥檚 pretty clear a high school education is no longer enough. Your question was framed as if the skills gap is something high schools need to focus on, which is not the way we see the world.
Shifting more emphasis from the bachelor鈥檚 degree to the associate degree and industry credentials seems to imply some pretty big changes in how we build pathways in K-12. Are we up to that challenge?
I think we鈥檙e testing that right now. I think it鈥檚 a healthy development, this idea of 鈥渟ome postsecondary,鈥� not just the gold standard of the four-year degree. It鈥檚 going to take a while before it fully penetrates into high schools.
Part of our challenge is to inject, much earlier and in a more consistent fashion, a much stronger focus on the world of work and careers, and the various education and training paths than can lead young people to a career that matches their own interests.
That鈥檚 the larger problem, as I see it, of getting high schools to be more focused on helping young people think more broadly about postsecondary education and training, not narrowly focused on one pathway.
What kinds of changes have to happen in schools to help this take hold?
I don鈥檛 think this is a problem that schools by themselves can solve. If we鈥檙e serious about career readiness, it鈥檚 going to take a different set of relationships among schools and employers and community-based organizations to really provide kids the kinds of experiences they need to have in order to be in a position to make informed choices among different pathways.
What do you mean by career readiness?
College readiness usually means that when kids graduate from high school they have the academic skills to take the next educational step.
With career readiness, it鈥檚 not parallel. When kids leave high school, they鈥檙e not really ready to start a career. What we want is for them to have had enough exposure to the world of work, including some significant opportunities for work-based learning, to be able to make an informed choice about what their next step is.
That鈥檚 a big challenge. I don鈥檛 think schools are equipped to do that on their own. I certainly don鈥檛 think this is a burden that can be put on school counselors by themselves. We need to figure out a systematic way, beginning as early as the middle grades, to think about what it takes year by year to give kids exposure to the world of work and careers.
In your new book, you mention that less education can actually be worth more in some fields of study. That could feel pretty counterintuitive to a lot of people. It might seem odd to advise students to get less college education. What do you mean that less can be more? Why would we advise students, in some cases, to get less education?
I would never overtly say to somebody, 鈥淵ou鈥檙e better off getting less than more.鈥� What I would say is let鈥檚 focus on getting you a first postsecondary credential so you can get started, and then you can decide. Is this enough for me, or do I want to go on and get more?
[There] 鈥� are studies that show the economic returns [of various postsecondary programs] one year out, five years out, and 10 years out. In some states, in some economic regions, people with two-year technical degrees are outearning or keeping pace with the average four-year-degree holder.
It鈥檚 those kinds of data, region by region, occupation by occupation, that if we could make available to young people and their parents, we could help them see why they might choose to focus first on a two-year degree or a first postsecondary certificate, depending on what field it鈥檚 in, and what the economic returns are.
The other piece of this is the continuing high four-year college and university dropout rates. What you see is a lot of people starting out and relatively few finishing. We need to do a better job of being clear about the consequences of starting and not finishing. Particularly if you are from a low-income family or a person of color, some college doesn鈥檛 get you much more advantage in the labor market than a high school diploma and may actually get you some debt.
If we鈥檙e going to try so hard to expose students to careers, wouldn鈥檛 you say it鈥檚 pretty important that schools know what鈥檚 going on in the labor market and how to properly advise students?
That鈥檚 right. I鈥檓 starting to see this in some of the places we鈥檙e working. New York City has a very nice set of brochures organized by industry sector, written for young people, that I think give them a pretty good way of starting to think about this. If you鈥檙e this kind of kid with these kinds of interests, you might be interested in this sector. Here are the kinds of jobs and occupations open to you with a one-year certificate, or two-year degree, or four-year degree or more, and here are the pay ranges.
This is relatively new stuff. This is not something schools are typically set up to do. But as you were pointing out, it鈥檚 part of this wave that鈥檚 beginning to wash over schools around what their responsibilities are vis- 脿 -vis exposing kids to a broader range of postsecondary options. I think that鈥檚 leading them to look at some of the labor-market data as well.
How can schools do that without counselors, or some cadre of adults, who know those labor-market trends and can translate them for students?
That鈥檚 a great question. It鈥檚 not clear to me. What is clear to me is that given the current ratios and the responsibilities counselors carry, it鈥檚 simply not a realistic expectation for them.
So where does this cadre of adults come from? It鈥檚 a really important question. Boston has something called the Boston Private Industry Council that fills some of that role. It has a cadre of career specialists that work in every Boston high school. They are the ones who are talking to kids, connecting them with workplace opportunities. In Switzerland, the government funds community-based information centers that do this work.
We鈥檙e going to have to figure out a way to get this kind of information into the schools, through community-based organizations or employer associations. Schools can鈥檛 do this alone.
New York City, and Boston, and other cities have a web of organizations that are solely focused on college access. They supplement the work counselors do by providing detailed information on financial aid, walking kids through the FAFSA [Free Application for Federal Student Aid] system, etc. Some of these organizations are beginning to broaden out their scope from college access to career. Some of those organizations can acquire the kind of competence to advise kids in this way.
But I don鈥檛 have a short-term, easy answer to this problem.
Do you worry about resegregation? As soon as people say, 鈥淢aybe not all kids need to go to college,鈥� I wonder if that bachelor鈥檚 degree bar will be lowered for the same groups of kids who got tracked in the old vocational-ed. system鈥攍ow-income and minority kids and those from households without a history of college-going.
We still have way, way too much segregation in the schools. It鈥檚 not as if we鈥檝e arrived at some nirvana of integration and now will go backwards. But high-end CTE schools siphoning off high-end kids, that鈥檚 an interesting phenomenon and a point of real tension in this movement.
As I travel around in my work, what I see is that the high-quality, really modern CTE programs are serving disproportionately white kids. That鈥檚 partly because of the legacy for a lot of African-American parents who still associate voc. ed. with second-class, dead-end dumping grounds for kids that schools didn鈥檛 believe could [succeed] academically.
But I worry less about these programs being a device that takes us back to the bad old tracking days. I worry more about whether the kids who most need these programs have access to them and are given the supports they need to be successful.
The easiest way to turn off employers is to send kids in who, for academic or attitudinal reasons, aren鈥檛 prepared to take the responsibility you need to have if you鈥檙e moving into a workplace.
You mention in the book that there鈥檚 a 鈥渇orgotten half鈥� of U.S. high school graduates who don鈥檛 earn certificates or degrees. How will this new movement鈥攆or sub-baccalaureate degrees and credentials鈥攄o right by that 鈥渇orgotten half?鈥�
This movement is principally about addressing that problem. With the warning that you just raised in the last question: How do we make sure that it鈥檚 not only the kids in the bottom half of the distribution that we鈥檙e sending off to one-year-certificate and two-year-degree programs.
We know that we鈥檝e got kids with strong academic potential, from poor families, who are not either going off to four-year colleges and universities or not succeeding there because there aren鈥檛 adequate supports. And we鈥檝e got lots of bored, middle-class kids who go off to four-year colleges and universities because they don鈥檛 think there are any other respectable places for them to go, and they wash out, and that鈥檚 a waste of academic potential.
In an ideal world, you鈥檇 see a reasonable distribution of kids across these various options, so it wouldn鈥檛 be all the poor kids and kids of color in the one- and two-year programs, and all the middle-class kids in the four-year programs.
A lot of this comes back to big advising and exposure questions: Can we actually do a good job of matching kids with programs that are appropriate for their interests and talents and reduce the predictive power of race and class in determining who goes in which direction? That鈥檚 a perennial problem that鈥檚 plagued American high schools forever, the great sorting-machine problem.
