High school graduation season is upon us. Across the U.S., graduation rates are up—whether through grade inflation, credit recovery programs, or genuine persistence—while interest in traditional four-year college attendance wanes. The class of 2026, like other recent graduates, went through their entire K–12 education against a backdrop of “college and career readiness” and a (slightly confusing) parallel push for “college for all.” How has that worked out?
YouScience, an ed-tech company with a college and career readiness platform, set out to assess post-graduation readiness among young adults across the country. They surveyed 1,009 recent high school graduates from the Classes of 2022 through 2025, sharing results in a new report, Diplomas without direction.
The methodological details are scant and, while the report claims to offer a “holistic view of the national educational landscape,” it lacks key particulars like the nature of the sample, specific survey questions, and who conducted the analysis. Even so, the survey responses reveal themes that can spur conversation as education leaders and policymakers around the country debate how to shape the future of high school.
The authors depict many high school graduates as “drifting” without a plan. They attribute this lack of direction to the fact that traditional high school programs center on an aspirational outcome that simply isn’t the destination for most graduates. Fewer high school graduates are seeking out traditional four-year degrees (37 percent, down from 45 percent in 2023), and 69 percent of high school graduates say they are not confident about their next steps. Even the students on a defined, traditional pathway like a four-year degree program report lacking confidence in their preparedness for the future (41 percent of females; 36 percent of male respondents).
The report lacks specificity as to what “the future” means (do any of us really know?), but the authors suggest that disengagement relates to a lack of understanding about how high school studies connect with future careers. With recent headlines like, “Will A.I. make college obsolete?” and “Congress is doing little to prepare for potential A.I. job losses,” a bit of unease is understandable, even responsible, on the students’ part. Still, the uncertainty does not absolve schools of the responsibility to keep students engaged in the present.
Students feeling like their coursework lacks relevance is hardly a new phenomenon, but it’s difficult to prepare the next generation for jobs that we don’t yet understand. The class of 2026 started high school before the public release of ChatGPT in November 2022. Depending on your perspective, the breathtaking pace of change during their teenage years is exhilarating, terrifying, or both. The survey responses reveal that students pursuing careers in the trades and similar technical work seem less concerned about AI-driven disruption than their peers. It’s a logical sentiment—skilled trades are less automatable than white-collar work—but their confidence may mask the downsides that drew previous generations toward the college-for-all mentality in the first place.
When I brought up AI recently with a few college-bound high school seniors, their concerns centered on annoyance about teachers’ careless use of the technology for lesson-planning and grading, not AI taking all the jobs. These soon-to-be graduates in Georgia had access to career-focused learning opportunities through their Title I public high school, including traditional work-study and internships for school credit. According to the YouScience survey, Georgia students report “standout confidence,” in contrast to their peers, particularly those in Western states, where about half of all respondents report low levels of preparedness. The authors describe this as a paradox due to the economic and innovation opportunities in the Western U.S., but I believe it speaks more to state-level policies promoting workforce alignment for students all the way through young adulthood.
The YouScience report goes on to describe how school types produce varied levels of perceived preparedness for the future: Public school students feel the least prepared and least confident among those surveyed, and charter school responses are uneven. The strongest outcomes are among private school students, though this likely reflects socioeconomic advantages as much or more than school programming. No matter how well-designed, I’m skeptical that an online platform like YouScience’s Brightpath program can provide public school students the wraparound, values-aligned, outcome-oriented experience that many private schools aim to deliver. I’m more bullish on schools that incorporate shared expectations, strong community engagement, and formal programs—open to all students—that allow young people to connect classroom learning with real-world experience.
This year’s graduating seniors enter adulthood during a time of extraordinary technological change, and it is unclear which current competencies will align with future economic needs. Offering hands-on experiences in high school, developing school cultures with clear expectations and community engagement, and investing in post-secondary education that bridges young people from youth to adulthood—including traditional college, workforce-aligned training, and public service opportunities—may help boost confidence as these young adults navigate an uncertain future.
SOURCE: YouScience, “Diplomas without direction: 2026 Post-graduation readiness report,” April 2026.
