The U.S. has a two-pronged labor market problem: a labor shortage and a skills gap. If every unemployed individual in the U.S. found a job right now, there would still be 4 million open jobs. Furthermore, a National Federation of Independent Business survey found that 54 percent of business owners struggle to hire qualified workers. As it becomes increasingly evident that schools are not providing students with the requisite skills to succeed in the labor market, the root of the persistent labor shortage and skills gap in the U.S. can be traced back to the K-12 education system.

However, career and technical education (CTE) programs have shown great promise in addressing this issue. The Department of Education (ED) notes that students who focus on CTE courses in high school have higher median annual earnings, graduation rates, and employment rates than non-CTE students. Despite the proven efficacy of CTE programs, inadequate federal investment remains a primary barrier to implementing successful programs nationwide.

It’s essential to adopt new funding methods and policies to mitigate this barrier, expand CTE programs in K-12 schools, and encourage widespread adoption of these programs to bridge the skills gap and foster student success. Like most education programs, CTE programs are primarily funded by state and local resources. Accordingly, increasing the implementation rates will be predicated on encouraging outside funding sources, such as private-sector partnerships and philanthropic organizations, to bridge the gap in federal funding and support the growth of CTE programs.

Additionally, refining the federal funding model to focus on equity grants and improved metrics, such as the number of program completers and certifications issued by a school district, can help incentivize schools to implement and expand CTE programs. Furthermore, reducing the stigma around CTE programs and promoting their value as viable pathways to success will encourage more students to participate and benefit from these opportunities, ultimately contributing to a better-prepared workforce and a more robust economy.

As the principal of a brand new “pathways in technology early college high school” (P-TECH), I’ve had to become comfortable with the idea of building a program even as students are enrolled in it. Fortunately, my leadership team and I understand what our school will look like when everything is in place.

We have a blueprint that we’re implementing one year at a time, so we don’t have to do everything at once. We also have a partner, the Ulster Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES), that has successfully run a similar program for eight years providing guidance and support. Here’s how it’s working so far and why it’s so important to our students and our community.

Building the plane as we fly—with excellent mechanics aboard

I became principal in July 2022, after the first year of the Ellenville P-TECH Academy’s existence. One of the first things I did was to reach out to Ulster BOCES and the State University of New York (SUNY) Ulster. These are important partners for us. Ulster BOCES helped to write the grant that secured funding to launch our school and has served as a model for us. Our students, like theirs, will take classes at SUNY Ulster and some will even take classes at Ulster BOCES itself.

With the Hudson Valley Pathways Academy at Ulster BOCES serving as a model both in its own operation and in its relationship with SUNY Ulster, we were fortunate to not be starting from scratch, but working to adapt a successful model to meet our own community’s needs. It was important to me to understand what role those institutions play and what expectations they would have of me and my students.

This month, hundreds of thousands of graduating high school seniors are weighing their college options. For many, it’s an intensely stressful time as they are rejected or waitlisted by schools they aspired to attend and decide where they will spend the next four years of their lives. Unfortunately, most will base those decisions on criteria that don’t actually determine the quality of their education and ignore the criteria that do.

Choosing a college to attend is not like choosing a product to purchase, though students often approach the decision with a consumer’s mindset. There is no Consumer Reports to rely on, leaving students and their parents unduly influenced by a school’s reputation, the glitziness of the admissions materials, the amenities in the student housing, the impressiveness of the recreational facilities, and the quality of the campus tour. None of these bears any relation to the quality of the instruction you will receive as a student.

Even sampling a class or two while visiting a school tells you virtually nothing meaningful.  As any teacher knows, there are good days and bad days in every course.  What you experience is not generalizable to the course as a whole, much less to the entire school.

The much-followed US News and World Report ratings are misleading at best.  They base their rankings on data that may not be reported consistently and on the subjective impressions of college presidents and senior administrators.  More fundamentally, the rankings falsely suggest that a single assessment scale is equally applicable to all, whereas students have a range of priorities and values.  The selection tool recently introduced by the New York Times, which allows students to search schools by criteria they choose and rank, is far more useful.

But there are metrics that matter, and it’s worth knowing what they are. 

The world is changing rapidly, with new technology being developed daily and jobs being replaced by automated machines and artificial intelligence (AI). These changes have brought about tremendous opportunities for those who can take advantage of them. However, these changes could spell disaster for those who are not prepared for the future. This is why it is so important that schools and educators take the necessary steps to ensure that our students are prepared for the future.

The 2023 Brain-Centric Design report estimates that by 2030, demand for higher cognitive skills will increase by 19 percent, while demand for physical and manual skills will decline by 14 percent. This means that the future of work will require a different set of skills than needed in the past. Therefore, schools and educators must equip students with the skills and knowledge needed to succeed in this new environment.

Here are 10 steps schools and educators must take to ensure that students are prepared for the future due to the rise of AI technology in the workplace:

1. Offer More STEM Classes

STEM classes are essential for preparing students for the future. With the rise of AI, knowledge of science and technology is becoming increasingly important. Schools and educators should offer more STEM classes to equip students with the necessary skills for the future. The primary focus must be increasing cognitive demand for our students. Classrooms should be mental workspaces complemented by the hands. It is urgent to shift the focus from merely “hands-on” learning to “brains-on” learning.

As school district leaders continue to worry about students’ college and career readiness, a new survey finds that less than half of students from traditionally underserved populations believe education after high school is necessary.

The new survey conducted by ECMC Group, in partnership with VICE Media Group, surveyed more than 1,000 high school students ages 14-18 from low-income, first-generation and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) backgrounds and found that only 45 percent believe education after high school is necessary, compared to 52 percent of all high schoolers.

In addition, only 8 percent feel fully prepared to make the decision of what to do after high school.

This study is the latest in a series of national surveys conducted since February 2020 to uncover insights from high schoolers about their academic and career plans after high school. The previous five surveys gathered information from a cross-section of more than 5,000 students from across the country.

The latest survey, conducted in October 2022, focused specifically on gathering insights from historically underserved high school student populations. The data is part of ECMC Group’s Question The Quo campaign, designed to empower Gen Z teens to take the education and career path that is right for them.

“This latest round of data provides a clearer picture of the issues and barriers faced by our most under-resourced students as they seek to determine their future trajectory,” said Dan Fisher, president and CEO of ECMC Group. “With this information, we have an opportunity to not only hear the concerns but develop solutions that will enable these students to persist and thrive in the future.” 

The survey also found that 83 percent of students surveyed feel pressure—often self-directed—to pursue a four-year degree, but more than half (53 percent) are open to a path other than four-year college, and nearly 60 percent believe they can be successful without a four-year degree.

As they ponder their future, most would like their high school to provide guidance on questions about finances (62 percent), support for their mental and physical health (48 percent), identifying postsecondary education options (46 percent), and managing future debt (37 percent) or handling unexpected costs (37 percent).

A student’s credentials and accomplishments, stored on and secured by blockchain technology, can set students up for college acceptance and college success, said Joshua Samuel, the CEO of Coins for College.

During a session at FETC 2023, Samuel explored how blockchain can be used in real world to solve problems like knowledge gaps, student motivation, attendance, teacher compensation.

Blockchain technology holds the promise to change much of what’s plaguing education today, he asserted. Blockchain relies on methods of cryptography, which secures data from unauthorized access and keeps students’ information safe.

A comprehensive learning record (CLR) holds all student data in a protected format and follows student wherever they go. It carries their accomplishments and information, ensuring that their academic and personal progress is not lost.

Coins for College uses a system called Scholarship Points, which are digital records of student accomplishments stored securely through blockchain and accessible to colleges. This, Samuel said, helps paint a more equitable picture of a student’s potential, beyond test scores and grades, because the points are valid data points that can be used to make a more informed and holistic decision regarding admissions and financial packages.

Students earn Scholarship Points for doing four different activities, and when done consistently, they’re on trajectory to go to any college of their choice, Samuel said:

1. Attendance: Students have to show up. If you aren’t there, you can’t learn what you need to learn and build on previous knowledge. Each time a student shows up, they earn points.
2. Supplemental learning: Some demographics don’t reach the “end of the textbook” for various reasons – behavior issues in classroom, funding, teacher availability, etc. In that sort of demographic, if the classroom is a student’s only access to that knowledge, that student will operate at a deficit. Supplemental learning through Coins for College’s platform takes students outside the classroom so they can continue to learn.
3. Assessments: These reveal knowledge gaps, and as revealed, they can be corrected and place you on the right trajectory.
4. Extracurriculars: Community service, clubs, athletics, and so forth.

“What if we could take the value we place on the SAT and spread those points out throughout an entire K-12 journey, via blockchain?” Samuel asked. “And colleges are able to see the whole student, from kindergarten to 12^th grade, beyond the classroom, including childhood events [such as trauma] or systemic barriers that prevent students from demonstrating their true skills and talent.”

What’s more, through nonprofit partnerships, corporations and philanthropists can donate directly to an individual student or group of students to cover additional college expenses not covered by standard scholarships.

Samuel said Coins for College’s main benefits include:

1. Students who are empowered can share responsibility for their own learning, thereby developing the intrinsic values needed for success
2. The CLR provides students a way to distinguish themselves from others as they pursue college and career goals
3. Blockchain technology can provide equitable opportunities for college and career for all students be removing the mental, financial, and academic barriers to college

Related:
AVID has huge benefits for high school students
Most high school grads feel their skills aren’t up to par

New UCLA-led research finds that a college preparatory program for youth experiencing educational inequities that operates in about 13 percent of U.S public high schools has a positive effect on students’ social networks, psycho-social outcomes, and health behaviors. 

The findings, published Dec. 16 in the peer-reviewed journal Pediatrics, suggest that the Advancement via Individual Determination (AVID) program, aimed at increasing educational opportunities for under-represented and economically disadvantaged students, also significantly reduces substance use.

“Academic tracking” is a common practice in high schools through which lower-performing students are clustered with others of similar academic achievement. Although intended to tailor academic rigor to students’ level of preparation, the study findings suggest that this practice may be counterproductive by reinforcing risky behaviors that students pick up from their peers.

“Untracking” these students by mixing them in with higher-performing peers may lead to better physical and psychological health, said lead author Dr. Rebecca Dudovitz, associate professor of pediatrics and director of pediatric health services research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

“This is the first randomized controlled trial of AVID in the United States, so it’s really exciting to see that this program that was designed to help open up educational opportunities for kids, also improved their health,” Dudovitz said.

AVID works with high school students earning B or C grade averages who might not otherwise be placed in more rigorous college preparatory tracks. It operates in 5,400 secondary schools, including both middle and high school, in 46 states and exposes academically middling students to tougher courses than they would have been assigned to under normal circumstances. AVID helps students develop agency, relational capacity, and opportunity knowledge.

“We believe that surrounding students with a supportive community and providing them with the skills and resources they need to reach their goals within existing educational structures is how we make college and career readiness possible for every student,” said Thuan Nguyen, AVID’s CEO. “The findings of the UCLA study are not surprising because AVID educators invest so much in their students’ lives.”

The researchers randomized 270 students in five large public schools who were placed in either an AVID group or in usual school programs. Students completed surveys at the end of 8^th grade or beginning of 9^th grade, and again at the end of 9^th grade.

Related:
Most high school grads feel their skills aren’t up to par
Arne Duncan: College completion–not simply access–critical to nation’s future

They found that students in the AVID group had lower odds of using substances–a 33 percent reduced risk compared to the control group–in addition to a 26 percent lower risk of associating with substance-using peers and about 1.7 times the odds of socializing with peers who were more involved with academics.

In addition, AVID males experienced lower stress and higher self-efficacy, determination and engagement with school than their peers who were assigned to the usual tracked academic program. These effects, however, were not seen among females, possibly because supportive academic environment have a greater effect on boys of color, the researchers write.

“AVID positively impacts social networks, health behaviors, and psycho-social outcomes suggesting academic untracking may have substantial beneficial spillover effects on adolescent health,” the researchers write.

The study has some limitations. The schools were all from a single school district and primarily serve low-income Latino students, and the findings were all from one school year, the researchers note. They did not directly observe how AVID was implemented or examine if the program actually increased college enrollment. In addition, it was not possible to blind the participants, meaning that students knew who was assigned to each group, which could have led them to respond to survey questions in ways that they thought the researchers would view favorably.

While more research is needed, the findings still provide important evidence that “ensuring schools have the resources and structures necessary to expand access to educational opportunities and facilitate healthy social connections, particularly in marginalized communities, may be key to achieving education and health equity more broadly,” the researchers write.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation ((E4A 74086) and National Institutes of Health (1K23DA040733-01A1) funded this research.

Study co-authors are Dr. Paul Chung, Kulwant Dosanjh, Meredith Phillips, Christopher Biely, Chi-Hong Tseng, and Dr. Mitchell Wong of UCLA; Joan Tucker of RAND Corporation; Mary Ann Pentz of USC; and Arzie Galvez and Guadalupe Arellano of Los Angeles Unified School District. Chung is also affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

Most high school graduates (75 percent) do not feel prepared to make college or career decisions after graduation, according to a survey from YouScience, a college and career readiness company.

The national online survey,  Post-Graduation Readiness Report, polled more than 500 students from the 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 high school graduation classes.

There is a tremendous opportunity for high schools to impact students’ college and career readiness, and most of the respondents (62 percent) felt that it is one of schools’ responsibilities. Despite that, 41 percent felt unprepared to make a career choice or declare a college major upon graduation, and 30 percent were not following any planned educational or career path. For 57 percent of the graduates, family and friends had the greatest impact on their college and career decision-making.

At a time when many industry leaders report that their top challenge is the limited supply of talent and nearly six million people in the U.S. are unemployed, the survey highlights the opportunity to better inform and engage our future talent pool.

Representing our most recent graduates of the past four years, the survey found 42 percent of the respondents lacking confidence or only slightly confident in their chosen career or education, while another 33 percent felt only moderately confident. The survey also revealed that more than one-third (37 percent) of the graduates — regardless of their current education or career — are still not sure they are where they want to be.

Noteworthy survey findings include:

There are varying degrees of post-secondary education and career preparation in today’s high schools

• Of the 42 percent of graduates that felt unconfident or slightly confident upon graduation about pursuing their chosen post-high school educational or career pathway:
  • 72 percent reported that they were rarely or only sometimes exposed to a variety of career options that could be pursued
  • 64 percent had 5 or fewer conversations with teachers or counselors about the various post-high school opportunities available
    
• Of the 24 percent of graduates that felt very or extremely confident in their chosen career or educational pathway upon graduation:
  • 81 percent reported that they were often or sometimes exposed to a variety of career options that could be pursued
  • 47 percent had anywhere from 5-20 conversations with teachers or counselors about the various post-high school opportunities available

Aptitude assessments are still not widely available, but students feel they would be helpful to engage them in their learning

• Only 16 percent of graduates reported taking an aptitude assessment to help prepare them for “what’s next”
• Nearly 80 percent of graduates felt they would have been more engaged in their learning if they better understood their own aptitudes and potential career opportunities

“Education leaders and industry must come together to help our students better understand themselves and their opportunities beyond high school,” said Edson Barton, Founder and CEO of YouScience.

“Career guidance and exposure are a critical part of student development. We need to provide this support as early as eighth grade, beginning with helping students understand their natural aptitudes and talents, and how that translates to career fit. In addition, we need to showcase career opportunities beyond the obvious. If students rely on family and friends for direction, they can be limited in their dreams and fail to fulfill their potential. In large part, our talent gap is also a career exposure gap.”

This press release originally appeared online.

Related:
Why self-discovery increases college and career success
Arne Duncan: College completion–not simply access–critical to nation’s future

Making higher education the norm for everyone in the nation—and ensuring that people have not just access to higher education, but also the support to complete that education—is paramount to the nation’s future success, said Arne Duncan, former U.S. Secretary of Education and former CEO of Chicago Public Schools.

Duncan, who is a distinguished senior fellow at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, sat down during an EDUCAUSE 2022 session and discussed some of the biggest challenges higher education is facing—and college access and completion dominated the conversation.

Questions came from Michael Berman, retired CIO, California State University, Office of the Registrar; Brian Baute, industry principal for education with RingCentral; and Jessie Minton, vice chancellor for technology and CIO of Washington University in St. Louis.

“We’ve seen tremendous innovation and adaptation over the past couple of years. How do we [create] the chance to not just go to college, but graduate, for folks across the country the norm?” Duncan said. “The truth is that less than half the nation has a college degree. If we’re going to close the gap between the haves and have-nots, the challenge for all of us is how we start to education exponentially more young people. It’s not about access, but completion.”

Education is traditionally slow to change, often trying to do more in the same manner. Instead of transformation, it’s incremental progress. So how can higher ed move the needle forward? Part of the answer is found in new learning modalities and extending learning opportunities to students who don’t have the luxury of moving to a school and living there while they earn a degree.

Related:
Why self-discovery increases college and career success
No, it’s not “the end of going to college”

What do you want to be when you grow up? As we get older, the answer often changes from highly visible and glamorous endeavors, such as being an actor or a rockstar, to something more useful and meaningful to us personally.

Determining a great career path, however, isn’t always easy and is more often than not inhibited by a lack of exposure to career options and awareness of our own natural abilities. Yet, in order to secure the right educational pathway, students are asked to make a decision as early as high school and sometimes even middle school. 

Statistics show that over the course of a person’s lifetime, they will work an average of 90,000 hours. That’s a lot of time. Time that, if not mapped out properly, can be costly and less than satisfying. So how does a high school-aged student choose a career path at such a young age? What are the steps students need to take to pick a fulfilling profession? 

Let’s take a look at a few proven ways to help. 

Defining Success and Determining How to Achieve It

One of the first things students should do is make it deeply personal – this is more than just thinking about likes or dislikes (those often change rapidly when we’re young). It is about discovering what is deep within them – their natural aptitudes. It is about learning more about their inherent talents and interests and determining what success actually looks and feels like for them personally. By exploring their inherent aptitudes and interests, we can better help students explore careers they may never have considered before, and open up whole new worlds of possibility and opportunity.

COVID-19 has caused a marked shift in attitudes toward higher education, particularly among high school students who are rethinking their options as they look ahead to a future career path that remains in flux due to the pandemic’s impact on the workforce and economy. While exacerbated over the past year, this was a trend we were seeing in the United States even before our nation went under lockdown.

Data from ECMC Group’s Question The Quo surveys fielded throughout the pandemic show more than half of students are open to something other than four-year college and the majority want to forge their own educational path.

In addition, while more than half of teens believe they can be successful with education they can complete in three years or less, a majority feel uninformed when it comes to their options, with 63 percent wanting their high school to provide more information about the variety of postsecondary education routes. Parents are also looking for options that stray from the four-year path, according to a recent Gallup poll.

Unfortunately, high school counselors charged with educating students and parents about their postsecondary options also feel uninformed. I recently conducted a study of high school counselors, asking about their knowledge and perceptions of postsecondary options. Less than 35 percent stated that they have sufficient time to expose their students to the many postsecondary options available. In addition, when asked about their knowledge of postsecondary pathways, less than half feel they have an above-average knowledge about options other than four-year college.

According to data from National Student Clearinghouse, undergraduate enrollment declined by nearly 3 percent this spring, following a similar drop last fall. These statistics have inspired dire headlines such as “Higher Ed in Crisis” and even “The End of the University,” but the truth is more nuanced. While college admissions may be down at most universities overall, graduate school enrollments are up significantly. 

It makes sense that, in a time when medical professionals are very much in the limelight, there has been greater demand for healthcare and nursing education. However, even in a time of deep concern about undergraduate enrollments, many providers have also seen increases for SAT and ACT products.

This says to me that, despite the disruptions of the past year, motivated students are still taking an active role in their own education and looking to differentiate themselves. 

Unfortunately, those disruptions on the path to college have had a disproportionate impact on some student populations, especially Black and Latinx students. This is where high schools can and must help. One way they can do that is by broadening access to AP classes and using their American Rescue Act and/or ESSER funding to provide the supplemental materials students need to master concepts and get scores that will earn them college credit. 

While the way students are achieving educational goals may look a little different due to the pandemic, it doesn’t eliminate its value or importance. In fact, with the way our day-to-day lives are evolving, it’s critical that students take time to evaluate how their next steps, personally and professionally, might impact the future. What’s been made clear over the past year is that how one looks for a college, how one prepares for a career and, ultimately, the importance of education all go hand in hand.

And while online education is an increasingly popular option for students, it doesn’t mean that all students are equipped with the knowledge of how to navigate this new-ish learning style and what resources to use in the process.

Here are three key insights for students to enable them to thrive, regardless of the learning environment.

Evaluate key factors when choosing a college.

Most educators want to cultivate an environment for students to flourish and to ultimately enter into the workforce successfully. The first step for many, though, is for students to find the right college and to know what to look for in an institution. There are a lot of variables that go into this decision, because some students thrive with learning in person while others thrive online. And with the past year’s circumstances, online education has skyrocketed across the country, with 93 percent of households with school-age children doing some form of e-learning. Enrollment at online institutions for both undergraduate and graduate students continues to grow.

“We are currently preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist … using technologies that haven’t been invented … in order to solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.”—Richard Riley, former Secretary of Education 

Less than twenty years ago, a student saying that they wanted to be a data scientist, digital artist, app developer, virtual assistant or blogger would’ve been met with confused faces and the standard “what’s that?” question from parents and educators.  

You can’t blame them, most of those jobs (if they even existed yet) were just fringe roles on the outside of tech spaces. And at the time, education and job prep were still based on careers that had been solidified. But, the students of the time filled those new roles, many of them having to teach themselves how to effectively do the functions of each job.  

Today, many now wonder if the same thing will happen again with our current students and will there be a skills gap between graduates and careers? Well, it will. A 2018 report by the Institute for the Future (IFTF) said that 85 percent of the jobs that today’s students will do in 2030 don’t exist yet. So, how are we supposed to again prepare students for the jobs of the future, such as a self-driving car mechanic, telesurgeon, or whatever else we see appear?

We asked this question to some of our Connections Academy teachers. Being experienced educators in online learning (another field that didn’t exist 20 years ago), they’ve seen firsthand how the world has changed and how we can better prepare our students with the future job skills for it. Here is what they recommend:  

Teach students these three essential skills

Traditionally, you choose a field that interests you, decide on it as your major/career path and then follow the educational paths that have been laid out to prepare you for that role. But, with the future of work, that’s an outdated recipe. 

College and career readiness should start early to help students develop growth mindsets and outline goals for their personal success. With students coming from different backgrounds and socio-economic situations, one path doesn’t fit all.

College readiness and access is often difficult, and students aren’t always sure how to embark upon their chosen career path. COVID-19 made college and career readiness more complicated for some students who chose to delay their postsecondary plans during the pandemic due to health, safety, family, and financial concerns.

Here are a handful of college and career readiness resources and tools to help educators at all levels inspire their students to pursue their academic and career goals.

1. The nonprofit Council for Aid to Education designs innovative custom assessments that measure the constructs most important to students, educators, and institutions. CAE’s assessments leverage a performance-task model to uniquely measure students’ ability to think critically, solve problems, and effectively communicate. CAE’s data show that 60 percent of students entering college are not proficient in these skills and that these skills are predictive of positive outcomes in college and career.

2. AVID works to close the opportunity gap by preparing all students for college readiness and success in a global society. When schools partner with AVID, they receive professional development, a suite of resources, and ongoing support to ensure a lasting impact that maximizes their return on investment. AVID’s work with schools aligns with their goals to accelerate and enhance the work that is already happening.

3. National PTA offers a look at the components of college and career readiness, including what it means to be a college and career ready high school graduate. The site also offers resources to help students gain the knowledge necessary to confidently transition to the next step in their postsecondary education and career track.

Women make up 47 percent of all employed adults in the U.S., but as of 2015, they hold only 25 percent of computing roles, according to data from the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT). Of the 25 percent of women working in tech, Asian women make up just 5 percent of that number, while Black and Hispanic women accounted for 3 percent and 1 percent, respectively.

From childhood through education to careers and leadership, female representation often gets lost, with many women choosing not to pursue technology fields due to lack of support, access, and even cultural or regional norms. Culturally-prescribed notions of “male” and “female” careers subtly affect the way a teacher, mentor, or employer looks at women in technical fields. They can lead girls to second-guess their abilities or interest in technology.

Cultivating a diverse tech workforce starts with education. Companies, schools, and higher education institutions can work together to support the development of bright female minds. There are many ways to ensure that women have the support and opportunities to explore STEM fields in both their educations and careers.

In the workplace, tech companies set goals to elevate female leaders, develop programs internally, and support programs externally that support diversity in tech and work with partners who also share these similar values.

COVID-19 has raised a number of major questions for educators, one of which is “Why are college applications decreasing?” Higher education lost about 400,000 students this fall. Are these students taking a gap year between high school and college? If so, that might be a good thing, since data suggests that a gap year can actually help students. The most important question is, “Will students put off college for a significant period, or choose not to go to college because of financial hardship?”

Fall 2020 enrollment data shows the largest decreases falling across community colleges and public universities, especially among lower income and minority students. This last data point is perhaps the most concerning. Educators need to be especially watchful and mindful of where these students land, and how we engage them and bring them into higher education after an (unplanned) gap year. Why? Because putting off college can have a significant impact on lifetime earnings, and overall education level continues to be one of the strongest predictors of lifetime earnings.

According to the Social Security Administration, men with bachelor’s degrees earn approximately $900,000 more in median lifetime earnings than high school graduates. Women with bachelor’s degrees earn $630,000 more. Men with graduate degrees earn $1.5 million more in median lifetime earnings than high school graduates. Women with graduate degrees earn $1.1 million more.

For colleges and universities, the critical question is whether or not the decline in enrollment is temporary, and if there is a shift in the perceived value of higher education. Given that the biggest declines in enrollment are at community colleges, with losses of lower-income and urban high school students, I think we’re not facing a structural long-term concern among the college or university enterprise. Colleges and universities may face short-term financial challenges, but overall demand is not likely to shift. However, an entire generation of poor and urban students may face greater future challenges and lower future earnings due to lack of college enrollment.

While the way students are achieving educational goals may look a little different due to the pandemic, it doesn’t eliminate its value or importance. In fact, with the way our day-to-day lives are evolving, it’s critical that students take time to evaluate how their next steps, personally and professionally, might impact the future. What’s been made clear over the past year is that how one looks for a college, how one prepares for a career and, ultimately, the importance of education all go hand in hand.

And while online education is an increasingly popular option for students, it doesn’t mean that all students are equipped with the knowledge of how to navigate this new-ish learning style and what resources to use in the process.

Here are three key insights for students to enable them to thrive, regardless of the learning environment.

Evaluate key factors when choosing a college.

Most educators want to cultivate an environment for students to flourish and to ultimately enter into the workforce successfully. The first step for many, though, is for students to find the right college and to know what to look for in an institution. There are a lot of variables that go into this decision, because some students thrive with learning in person while others thrive online. And with the past year’s circumstances, online education has skyrocketed across the country, with 93 percent of households with school-age children doing some form of e-learning. Enrollment at online institutions for both undergraduate and graduate students continues to grow.

Closing the educational divide and the digital skills gap has always been important to technologically-minded educators, but the disruptions of COVID-19 have brought a new urgency. Ensuring all students can participate equitably and fulfill their dreams in society hinges on having the right access to technology, especially in the education system.

Students from underserved schools often lag behind in skills and opportunity when they leave the education system. When used responsibly, technology can be a real equalizer in the education field—it helps close the educational divide and creates the opportunity to build the digital skills necessary for the high-demand jobs of the future.

Students who leave school with these skills can better compete on a playing field often tipped against them. Skilling all of our students for the digital workforce, regardless of socioeconomic status or ability, is one of the most powerful ways we can help level that playing field.

High stakes for tech skills

While the global economy has long been moving toward digital transformation, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated that trajectory. The need for digital skills transcends industries. On the individual level, people who were working in offices with on-site support before the pandemic are now working in living rooms and garages, and many suddenly find they not only need to use a wider array of digital tools but they also have become their own IT departments.

On March 13, Keller, a second grader at Vermont’s Hinesburg Elementary, came home from school and didn’t return for six months. Like 20 million other students across the United States, Keller, with no preparation or warning, abruptly shifted to online learning.

Two hundred miles south of Hinesburg, Matt was a ninth grader when COVID-19 struck in Boston. Like Keller, he left school in mid-March and has not been back since. Thus began the most disruptive period in the history of American education.

Pick Boston, Hinesburg, or any other city or small town, and the story’s the same: Most students are learning less, and 10 percent of America’s K-12-aged students no longer attend class, either in-person or virtual.

Keller was one of the lucky ones. Unlike Matt and too many other children, he had a quiet place to work, parents able to help him, and reliable internet service.

The lost generation

Many other kids weren’t so lucky. Recent studies tell a troubling story about what’s happening with our children. A McKinsey report predicts that because of the pandemic’s disruption to America’s schools, students will lose 8-12 months of math, and the forecast for reading loss isn’t much better.