Giving Compass' Take:

· In Europe, young people have access to high quality apprenticeships and job training programs that focus on teaching the skills needed for high demand, high income jobs. Getting Smart writer Tom Vander Ark suggests America follows Europe with career ready high schools that teach the skills necessary to prepare young people for high demand, high wage, and high growth jobs.

· What do career ready high school programs have to offer? Are they a viable alternative to college? 

· Here are 5 ways to build more inclusive programs in career education.

What if high school offered a fast path to a great first job?

After reviewing Ryan Craig’s new book outlining “the faster + cheaper revolution that will upend the traditional college route, we searched for examples of high school programs that put young people on the first rung of an attractive economic ladder. We found a growing number of high schools and career centers offer a direct path to high wage, high demand jobs with real growth potential powered by on the job and formal postsecondary education programs.

For generations, young people in Europe have had access to quality apprenticeship programs. In the last decade Switzerland became recognized as the gold standard for vocational education and job training by focusing on high wage, high demand jobs and by building in transferability into other occupations and into further and higher education.

While the Europeans were improving vocational training, American educators and philanthropists (including me) pushed college for all. We did a good job of getting more low-income students through high school and into college but not through college–and millions left with piles of debt and no credential.

As sectors have been augmented and automated, millions of high skill, high wage jobs have been added. And some have strong advancement opportunities–equal or better than many college degrees.

Read the full article about career ready high schools by Tom Vander Ark at Getting Smart.