Why Is Postsecondary Success Becoming Harder to Achieve?

Something is not adding up.

Employers report record difficulty finding qualified candidates. Recent graduates feel blindsided by the demands of professional life. And millions of young Americans are arriving at the threshold of adulthood whether that means a four-year college, a trade program, the military, or direct employment without the tools, the exposure, or the self-awareness to take that first confident step forward.

Postsecondary success has always required preparation. But the runway has shortened, the expectations have shifted, and for many students, the preparation simply isn't happening at all. The question isn't just why graduates are struggling—it's why we keep placing the solution exclusively in the hands of higher education when the problem starts much earlier.

The Numbers Tell a Difficult Story

According to Lumina Foundation and Gallup's 2024 State of Higher Education Report, 41.9 million U.S. adults have started college but stopped out before earning a credential—up from 40.4 million just one year prior. Meanwhile, groundbreaking research from Bain & Company finds that fewer than half of high school alumni report earning a living wage or feeling financially stable in early adulthood. Four in ten are "career undermatched"—working in roles that don't require the degree they earned. Only about 40% have landed what researchers define as a strong early job: one that pays a living wage, offers advancement, and sits in a growing, automation-resistant field.

These aren't outliers. They are the norm.

The Skills Gap Starts Before College

Most conversations about workforce readiness focus on what colleges should be doing differently. But the deeper failure is happening before a student ever sets foot in a lecture hall or a trade classroom. How many times have you been told as an educator by an employer: "Teach them basic entry level skills and I will train them for this specific job?"

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and College Board's 2025 New Hire Readiness Report found that 84% of hiring managers say most high school graduates are not prepared to enter the workforce, and 80% believe today's graduates are less prepared than previous generations. These aren't abstract concerns—research cited by McKinsey & Company suggests businesses spend an estimated $3.4 billion annually on remedial training for entry-level employees, training that should have been built into the educational experience from the start.

The skills most commonly missing are not technical. They are human. According to SHRM, nearly three in four employers struggle to find graduates with the soft skills their organizations need—problem-solving, critical thinking, communication, and the ability to navigate complexity. The General Assembly 2025 Workforce Readiness Survey reinforces this: 56% of business leaders cite weak soft skills as the primary reason entry-level workers underperform, up from 50% the year prior.

What's creating this deficit? Traditional school systems have prioritized standardized testing over practical skill development and career exposure, producing students who can perform on assessments but have had limited experience working on teams, navigating professional expectations, or exploring what kinds of work actually exist. Student perceptions about careers begin forming as young as age 10 and remain relatively fixed by 14, according to research from the Center for American Progress. If those years are spent in academic silos disconnected from the professional world, students are making one of the most consequential decisions of their lives with very little information.

The "College for All" Narrative Is Leaving Students Behind

For decades, K-12 education has funneled students toward four-year institutions regardless of individual interest, aptitude, or financial circumstance. Many students who enter without a clear sense of purpose or the resources to persist don't finish—and the consequences are severe. Students who begin but don't complete a bachelor's degree are three times more likely to default on their student loans than those who complete, according to Third Way.

The culture is shifting. Fortune reports that 70% of teens say their parents now support exploring options beyond four-year college, and the American Staffing Association finds that more U.S. adults now recommend trade school over college for graduating seniors. The economic case is compelling: the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 6.6% employment growth for trade occupations overall, with some fields like wind turbine technology growing 45%. Community colleges with a larger proportion of vocational programs saw enrollment surge nearly 18%, per Richmond Fed research—exceeding pre-pandemic levels.

Yet most K-12 systems are not set up to equitably expose students to these alternatives. Trade pathways and apprenticeships remain something students stumble into rather than purposefully pursue—an institutional failure as much as a personal one.

When Graduates Arrive, Employers Are Skeptical

A Hult International Business School survey of 800 HR leaders found that despite 98% saying their organizations struggle to find talent, 89% actively avoid hiring recent graduates—citing lack of real-world experience (60%), inability to work on a team (55%), and cost of training (53%).

The Cengage Group's 2025 Graduate Employability Report captures the core paradox: 89% of educators believe their students are prepared to enter the workforce, yet 48% of graduates feel unprepared to even apply for entry-level jobs. NACE research shows the perception gap between student self-assessment and employer assessment exceeds 30 percentage points for leadership and professionalism. Students believe they are far more ready than employers find them to be—not because students are wrong about what they've learned, but because they can't connect that learning to what employers actually need.

The Case for Career Readiness & Development—Starting in K-12

The evidence points in one direction: the solution to postsecondary success must begin long before postsecondary education begins.

WestEd research confirms that starting work-based learning from an early age produces better postsecondary outcomes. The Brookings Institution finds that students who receive targeted career education in high school are 30% more likely to secure full-time employment within one year of graduation. And research from Harvard, the Carnegie Foundation, and Stanford—cited by EDSI—attributes 85% of job success to soft skills, with only 15% coming from technical expertise.

Meaningful Career Readiness & Development in K-12 means starting career awareness in elementary and middle school, when perceptions are still forming. It means exposing students through direct experience and real professional connection, to the full spectrum of careers available to them: trades, healthcare, technology, agriculture, finance, creative industries, and beyond. And it means developing the soft skills, professional instincts, and self-knowledge that employers consistently identify as the difference between a hire and a pass.

The Path Forward

Postsecondary success is not getting harder because students are less capable or less motivated. It is getting harder because the system designed to prepare them has not kept pace with what the workforce actually requires—and because the window for building career awareness, professional skills, and genuine self-knowledge has been consistently underused.

Career Readiness & Development is not a supplemental program or a guidance office afterthought. It is the essential architecture of a preparation system that actually prepares.

The longer we wait to build it, the harder postsecondary success will continue to become.

Sources

• Lumina Foundation & Gallup. State of Higher Education 2024 Report. https://changinghighered.com/state-of-higher-education-report-2024-lumina-gallup/
• Bain & Company. Educated but Underprepared: Closing the Career Readiness Gap. https://www.bain.com/insights/educated-but-underprepared-closing-the-career-readiness-gap/
• U.S. Chamber of Commerce & College Board. New Hire Readiness Report 2025. https://www.uschamber.com/workforce/new-report-reveals-students-arent-ready-for-work-business-and-education-join-forces-to-close-the-gap
• McKinsey & Company via Bonfire Leadership Solutions. Closing the Skills Gap in the Post-Degree Economy. https://bonfireleadershipsolutions.com/blog/skills-workforce-employers/
• SHRM. Employers Say Students Aren't Learning Soft Skills in College. https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/employee-relations/employers-say-students-arent-learning-soft-skills-college
• General Assembly. Entry-Level Workers Still Seen as Unprepared—Soft Skills Gap Widens. https://generalassemb.ly/blog/entry-level-workers-still-seen-as-unprepared-soft-skills-gap-widens/
• Center for American Progress. Preparing American Students for the Workforce of the Future. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/preparing-american-students-workforce-future/
• Third Way. The State of American Higher Education Outcomes in 2023. https://www.thirdway.org/report/the-state-of-american-higher-education-outcomes-in-2023
• Fortune. 'College doesn't carry the same ROI it once did': 70% of teens say parents support alternatives. https://fortune.com/2025/06/13/college-roi-trade-schools-apprenticeships-parent-support/
• American Staffing Association. One in Three Americans Recommend Trade School Over College. https://americanstaffing.net/posts/2025/06/05/trade-school-over-college/
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics via Best Trade Schools. Trade School vs. College. https://www.best-trade-schools.net/next-student-guide/worth/trade-school-vs-college/
• Richmond Fed. Preparing to Work: The Demand for Postsecondary Education and How It's Changing. https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/econ_focus/2024/q3_district_digest
• NPR. Many in Gen Z Ditch Colleges for Trade Schools. https://www.npr.org/2024/04/22/1245858737/gen-z-trade-vocational-schools-jobs-college
• Hult International Business School / Workplace Intelligence. New Survey Highlights Skills Gap in Recent College Graduates. https://www.hult.edu/blog/wi_skills_survey/
• Cengage Group. 2025 Graduate Employability Report. https://www.cengagegroup.com/news/press-releases/2025/cengage-group-2025-employability-report/
• National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). The Gap in Perceptions of New Grads' Competency Proficiency. https://naceweb.org/career-readiness/competencies/the-gap-in-perceptions-of-new-grads-competency-proficiency-and-resources-to-shrink-it
• WestEd. Work-Based Learning: Creating Real-World Relevance in Education. https://www.wested.org/blog/work-based-learning-creating-real-world-relevance-in-education/
• Brookings Institution via Kalofonos, H. The Workforce Readiness Gap. https://hkalofonos.medium.com/the-workforce-readiness-gap-486cdefeb95a
• EDSI. Bridging Education and Workforce: Career Readiness Success. https://www.edsi.com/blog/customized-career-readiness-curriculum-how-schools-and-students-benefit
• YouScience 2024 Workforce Report via TestGorilla. 40% of Employers Don't Believe Graduates Are Career-Ready. https://www.testgorilla.com/blog/entry-level-talent-pipelines/