Preparing Students for College and Career Success

From the Marshall Memo #432

(Originally titled “College and Career Readiness: Same or Different?”)

“The debate about whether high school is for job training or college prep is over,” say David Conley and Charis McGaughy of the Educational Policy Improvement Center in this Educational Leadership article. “All adults in the school community, including parents, faculty, and business leaders, understand that the school’s mission is focused on college and career readiness for all.” But college readiness and career readiness are not one and the same. All students need to acquire a common foundation of skills and knowledge and then build skills and nurture interests to achieve more personalized goals. “By focusing on both, secondary schools can enable all students to prepare for successful futures,” say Conley and McGaughy. 

Studies have found significant overlap between what students need for college and career success: study skills, time-management skills, persistence, and ownership of learning. “A lack of proficiency in these skills probably affects career-oriented students more adversely than it does students entering bachelor’s degree programs,” say Conley and McGaughy, “in part because career-oriented programs tend to offer fewer supports to help students develop these skills if they lack them on entry and in part because students in such programs are more likely to be discouraged by problems early in their program.”

Students also need a set of cognitive strategies: the ability to formulate problems, collect information, interpret and analyze findings, communicate in a variety of modes, and do all of this with precision and accuracy in novel and non-routine situations. 

What can schools do to prepare students for college and career success? Here are Conley’s and McGaughy’s recommendations:

• Establish a college- and career-ready culture. High expectations and frequent mention to students of “when you are in college” is especially important for students who will be the first in their family to continue their education beyond high school. 

• Measure what’s important for both college and career success. This means going beyond traditional standardized tests and tapping into a range of other skills, including cognitive strategies, key learning skills and techniques, goal setting and progress monitoring, test-taking and note-taking, persistence with challenging tasks, and college knowledge – admissions, financial aid, college culture, and self-advocacy. 

• Align all courses to college- and career-readiness standards. This means that career/ technical courses and college-prep courses all build core academic skills needed for postsecondary experiences; time management, study skills, and goal setting are explicitly taught. “Middle and high school courses and expectations integrate closely so that students progress continually toward the outcome of college and career readiness, even as they take varying routes toward this goal,” say Conley and McGaughy. 

• Partner with local postsecondary institutions and businesses. Students should have multiple opportunities for career exploration through classwork, opportunities to study at area colleges, and return visits by local youth who are in college to advise and mentor the next generation of students. College readiness is “a continuum, not a cut score,” say the authors. 

“College and Career Readiness: Same or Different?” by David Conley and Charis McGaughy in Educational Leadership, April 2012 (Vol. 69, #7, p. 28-34), http://www.ascd.org; the authors are at david_conley@epiconline.org and charis_mcgaughy@epiconline.org