Over the last year, I’ve played the role of academic advisor, career coach, college counselor, financial aid expert, and more for my teenage brother-in-law. (To our readers who have been through this, I commend you.)

He came to me with questions. Fair questions. Questions that should have answers.

  • What the heck is an SAI? (Y’know… the Student Aid Index)
  • Do I actually want to major in biology? 
  • What kinds of jobs can I get with my degree? 
  • How much debt will I graduate with?

Having a job that focuses on higher ed issues helped answer many of his questions, though I will admit there was also some googling (but not ChatGPT, never ChatGPT).

He graduated from high school in May and is headed to Virginia Commonwealth University in a few weeks (also my alma mater—go Rams!). 

With a long—and, likely, expensive—postsecondary road ahead of him, I can’t help but wonder what kind of advice he would have gotten had he gone to someone else. Maybe they would have been less biased. Maybe he would have chosen a different direction. 

I’ll never know for sure, but the experience made it clear just how little information young people are working with when they are weighing post-high school options—and how unsure they are about their own futures.

A recent survey by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development found that teenagers around the world don’t know what they’re doing after high school, and express high levels of career uncertainty and confusion. The survey, called “The State of Global Teenage Career Preparation,” involved 690,000 15- and 16-year-olds from more than 80 countries (including the U.S.) and revealed:

  • Almost half (49%) of all students surveyed reported feeling that school has done little to prepare them for life after high school, and 47% said they are worried about not being ready for adult life.
  • Also, more than 1 in 4 students in the U.S. said that school has been a waste of time. As our CEO, Ben Wallerstein, noted in his recent blog, this disillusionment promotes disengagement and reflects the need for greater change in education. This disillusionment does not end with high school either, with more than half (51%) of Gen Z also questioning the value of a college degree.

Like my brother-in-law, many young people rely on the adults in their lives—especially their parents—to give them direction. According to Gallup, Walton Family Foundation, and Jobs for the Future (JFF), a whopping 90% of Gen Z students trust their parents to advise them on life after high school. 

But when it comes to post-high school opportunities, many parents struggle with the same limited experiences as their children. The majority of parents report a lack of understanding of postsecondary options other than earning a bachelor’s degree or working at a paid job—leaving options like earning an associate degree or certificate, completing an internship or apprenticeship, starting a business, or joining the military underdiscussed.

As a result, fewer than 3 in 10 teens feel “very prepared” to pursue the post-high school pathways they are passionate about.

So, what can we do?

Have conversations earlier
  • As JFF CEO Maria Flynn suggests in TIME: “Weave conversations about careers into daily life and normal school days—not just captured in one-off career days. Visit colleges in-person and encourage your kids to try a summer internship. Help them understand how their interests and curiosities connect to both jobs and what they’re learning. … Explore local workforce boards, community colleges, and employer-led training programs that increasingly offer free or low-cost pathways into in-demand fields.”
Collect more—and better—data
  • Many alternative programs are woefully lacking data to prove that they are a good return on investment, making it difficult for students and their families to make informed decisions. Some states, like my home state of Virginia and Minnesota, are already working to strengthen data collection and linking education and workforce data systems in hopes of being able to discern which pathways really pay off.
College advising as we know it is obsolete
  • In a world where a four-year degree is not the only pathway to career success, it’s time to reimagine our current advising infrastructure. Today’s students need transition coaches—advisors who understand the full spectrum of postsecondary and workforce options, from apprenticeships, to bootcamps, to military enlistment, and prevent students from having to make high-stakes decisions about their future on their own. 

This article is sourced from Whiteboard Notes, our weekly newsletter of the latest education policy and industry news read by thousands of education leaders, investors, grantmakers, and entrepreneurs. Subscribe here.