While 66% of high school students from middle-income families say educators heavily emphasized four-year college when talking about future pathways, far fewer reported similar attention to community college (11%), technical training and apprenticeships (16%) and full-time work (17%), according to a Rand Corp. report released Monday.

Some 70% of students seeking bachelor’s degrees or higher said their school is doing better than OK in helping them plan for the future, but only about 50% of students not seeking a bachelor’s degree said the same.

The survey found that schools most often provide work-related learning through coursework and career and technical education, but apprenticeships and internship opportunities are rare. These differences come even as the labor market for young adults shifts and as CTE gains traction across federal and state governments and localities.

Small portions of students said the information their school provides “very much” matches their family’s financial situation. Just 21% of students from families making below $75,000 a year said the information provided to them “very much” matches their family’s financial situation, and only 27% of families earning more than $150,000 said the same.

“Districts should be communicating more clearly to students about how to pursue other pathways, including 2-year college and technical and career training, if those best fits their interests or family financial circumstances,” said Benjamin Master, senior policy researcher at Rand Corp., in an email to K-12 Dive.

By spring of their junior year, more than 4 in 10 students said they had yet to make a post-graduation plan or meet with their counselors about it.

At the same time, while students have goals related to work-related learning, they lag on their follow-through. By spring of their senior year, only 39% of high school students reported visiting an employer or workplace — even though 71% had planned to do so. And while 66% had plans to participate in an internship or apprenticeship, only 22% followed through.

Read the full article about school counselors emphasizing college pathways by Naaz Modan at Higher Ed Dive.