The Opportunity Seekers
We’ve already met Isaac. Here are four other students who shared their stories with us.
Their names have been changed, but their words are their own. They come from different backgrounds and are spread across the country, but they share a common thread: They have ambitious goals, and they expect and believe school will help them get there.
94%
For years, getting more students through high school has been a huge goal of educators and policy makers across the country.
The effort has largely paid off: High school graduation rates have risen steadily, past 80 percent.11 When students collect their diplomas, they believe they are prepared for what’s next—because that’s what they’ve been told throughout their K-12 careers.
Their aspirations almost invariably include higher education. Enrollment in degree-granting institutions grew by 23 percent between 1995 and 2005, and a further 14 percent between 2005 and 2015—fueled by increasing numbers of Black, Latinx, and Asian students.12 For the first time, students coming of age today are doing so in a nation where higher education is viewed not as the purview of a privileged few, but as a baseline expectation for most families.
The students in our sample embody this trend. Ninety-four percent said college was part of their plan. That held true across all five school systems we studied: In each district, more than 90 percent of the third- through 12th-grade students we surveyed planned to go to college. It also held true across all demographic groups: 95 percent of Black students, 95 percent of Latinx students, and 94 percent of students from families where a language other than English is spoken at home told us they want and expect to go to college.
When students collect their diplomas, they believe they are prepared for what’s next—because that’s what they’ve been told throughout their K-12 careers. Their aspirations almost invariably include higher education.
It isn’t an arbitrary goal. Like Hajima and her peers, these students want to go to college so they can achieve their career goals. Roughly 70 percent of high school students told us they aspire to career pathways that require at least a college degree. The thousands of students we surveyed intend to become everything from doctors and lawyers to teachers and hair stylists, musicians and athletes. Across all grade levels, healthcare and public/social service were among the top three sectors students aspired to work in, and by high school, careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) had risen to the top of the list as well. Nearly a third of high schoolers across all five school systems told us they hope to work in healthcare.
These students expect their K-12 education to add up to something practical: readiness to meet their goals, to have the careers they dream of, to support their families and communities. That’s the promise of school.
But is school delivering on that promise?