Better data on career pathways could change everything

career pathways – A new study tracking more than 5,000 Delaware students finds many pathways graduates enroll in postsecondary, get aligned to majors, and work while studying. But the findings also underline a deeper problem: most accountability systems measure “placement” with

For years, the debate about career pathways has sounded like a set of binaries—apprenticeship versus college, workforce training versus liberal arts, careers versus academics. The questions have been loud. The answers, at least in a way that matters to students, have been harder to prove.

Now a detailed study of Delaware students is offering encouraging outcomes—while also exposing how much is still missing. Researchers followed more than 5. 000 Delaware high school students across three graduating cohorts. representing more than half of Delaware’s school districts and charter schools in rural. suburban. and urban communities. Among students who completed a career pathway. 74 percent enrolled in postsecondary education within six months of graduation. compared with a national average of 62 percent. Roughly 45 percent enrolled in a major aligned to their pathway. and 55 percent were employed within six months. many while also attending college.

By 18 months, 69 percent were employed overall. The share of students balancing both work and postsecondary education grew from 35 percent to 48 percent. And one figure stands out for what it suggests about the people who slip through the cracks: only about 6 percent of pathways graduates were neither employed nor enrolled within six months. declining to roughly 2 percent by 18 months.

The Delaware results suggest that when pathways are well designed. they can help students transition into both the postsecondary education system and the workforce. They also line up with what practitioners have been watching closely: more students today work while enrolled in college. and many outcomes don’t fit neatly into a single box.

That mismatch is at the center of the frustration. Federal and state accountability systems often rely on broad “placement” measures meant to show whether learners successfully transition into education or the workforce. but “placement” frequently combines numbers of students entering employment. postsecondary education. military service. and training into one metric. Under the federal Strengthening Career & Technical Education for the 21st Century Act—known as the Perkins Act—and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act. states typically report placement in ways that can flatten very different paths. A student enrolled full-time in nursing can be counted the same as a student working part-time in retail. A student entering a registered apprenticeship may appear indistinguishable from a student taking unrelated coursework with no connection to long-term career goals.

The Perkins Act itself recognized part of this problem in 2018. calling for the collection of more nuanced data on whether students enroll in postsecondary education. advanced training. military service. or employment. But the law included a caveat—“to the extent such data are available”—and the lesson from that wording is stark: in most states. the more detailed data simply does not exist.

Even the Delaware study, while rich, hints at how the right questions can still point to the next gap. In Delaware, high school pathways in health care, education, and the skilled trades showed particularly strong postsecondary alignment. Within 18 months of graduation. 58 percent of health care pathway students enrolled in aligned majors. compared with 44 percent of education pathway students and 48 percent of architecture and construction pathway grads.

The sequence of outcomes in Delaware makes the stakes feel immediate: the students who completed pathways were often moving into the education and work systems quickly. but the bigger question remains whether the systems can track—consistently. across states—whether students are actually progressing along the futures the programs promised.

That matters because career pathways are not being built for abstract metrics. As a country. policymakers. educators. and employers have spent billions of dollars expanding dual enrollment. promoting apprenticeships. and redesigning high schools around workforce alignment. Yet far less of that investment has gone into understanding whether students move into postsecondary programs and careers connected to what they studied in high school.

The paper trail points to how pathways can ripple into other parts of the education-to-work pipeline. Delaware’s registered apprenticeship system currently has a waitlist for enrollment. which the state is seeking to address through its next budget. The study does not claim that waitlists will affect every student pursuing the skilled trades. but it almost certainly influences how and when some young people transition into aligned careers.

The reason this is more than a policy debate is the world students are entering. The economy has fundamentally changed: young people are navigating a labor market where education and employment overlap more than before. skills matter as much as credentials. and career progression is rarely linear. Employers, too, continue to say they need workers with both skills and experience.

If that’s the reality, then focusing only on participation or on a single “placement” tally misses the point. The future of career pathways cannot simply be about whether students are placed somewhere after high school. It cannot be only about whether they show up in the numbers that accountability systems can easily track.

To get closer to whether pathways are truly working for students. the question has to shift from how many students move into postsecondary or employment to where they move—and how closely that movement connects to the pathways they completed. The study’s Delaware results point toward that possibility. but the gaps in data infrastructure keep states from asking the exact questions that would reveal whether students are navigating toward opportunity. mobility. and long-term economic value.

Luke Rhine is vice president for postsecondary success at Rodel, whose mission is to strengthen Delaware’s public education and workforce systems by connecting partners to help advance and implement sustainable solutions.

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