Career Pathways: Five Ways to Connect College and Careers, calls for states to help students, their families, and employers unpack the meaning of postsecondary credentials and assess their value in the labor market.

1. Career Pathways:
Five Ways to Connect College and Careers
By: Anthony P. Carnevale, Tanya I. Garcia, Artem
Gulish
July 11, 2017

2. Overview
• College is a big investment with lifelong economic
consequences
• The lack of transparency around college and careers leads to
costly uninformed decisions
• The old rules of thumb about just getting good grades and a
college degree to get access to successful career are no
longer enough
• States should help students, their families, and employers to
unpack the meaning of postsecondary credentials and assess
their value in the job market
• A Learning and Earning Exchange is necessary to connect
postsecondary education and training to learning and earning
on the job

3. The New American Economy
• In the past, a high school education could lead to a good job
with decent wages
• Today, entering the middle-class requires at least some
education beyond high school
• The number of postsecondary programs of study more than
quintupled between 1985 and 2010 — from 410 to 2,260
• The number of colleges and universities more than doubled
from 1,850 to 4,720 between 1950 and 2014
• The number of occupations grew from 270 in 1950 to 840 in
2010

4. Integrating education and workforce data will
help individuals navigate the busy college
and career maze
• Employers will reap the benefits by allowing them to identify
and hire talented workers
• Colleges can restructure programs to improve student
outcomes
• Policymakers can better allocate resources to build strong
economies

5. Five Ways to leverage integrated education and
workforce data
• Education projections, business expansion, and workforce
quality
• Program alignment with labor market demand
• Curriculum alignment with workforce requirements
• Counseling and career pathways
• Job placement and skills gap analysis

6. Education projections, business expansion,
and workforce quality
To help state economic and
workforce leaders attract new
employers and retain existing
ones

7. Program alignment with labor market demand
To make program-related
decisions that address
labor market needs, while
college and system
administrators can
demonstrate return on
investment to state
leaders

8. Curriculum alignment with workforce
requirements
To help faculty members create
curricula aligned with the applied
skills and abilities that learners
will need to succeed in their
careers

9. Counseling and career pathways
To support students in their
educational and career
decisions as well as identify
and reach out to the learners
who need additional support

10. Job placement and skills gap analysis
To help workers
determine if and how
the knowledge, skills,
abilities, interests, and
work values they
possess are
transferable to new
jobs

11. Conclusion
• In the United States, the myriad of pathways through the
postsecondary education and training system requires
common, measurable outcomes that reflect the successes
students can expect to attain in the job market
• Reducing the confusion around college and careers will help
equip more individuals with the skills they need in the 21st-
century economy and offer employers the skilled workforce
they require
• People need better guidance and consumer information to
make good college and career decisions, through smart data,
public facing tools, and outreach that promotes their use

12. For more information:
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See the full report at:
cew.georgetown.edu/careerpathways