Not just college: Technical education as a pathway to the middle class

Education reformers are obsessed with getting many more low-income students “to and through” four-year colleges. Understandably so, a bachelor’s degree is the closest thing we have to a guaranteed ticket to the middle class.

The trouble is, few children from poorer homes are likely to end up with a BA. As Andrew Kelly of the American Enterprise Institute shows in his chapter of my new book, just 14 percent of children from the bottom third of the income distribution will complete four-year degrees. Even if we doubled that number, most poor and working class kids will still need other paths to the middle class.

“Bachelor’s degree or bust”: A failed strategy

The academic-dominated approach is not working, especially for economically disadvantaged students. Of this group, about 20 percent of teenagers don’t graduate from high school at all. Of those who do graduate, about half matriculate to some form of college. But many are not ready: two-thirds of low-income students at community colleges start in remedial classes.

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Technical education for social mobility

A better approach for many young people would be to develop coherent pathways, beginning in high school, into authentic technical education options at the post-secondary level. But, right now, 81 percent of high school students are taking an academic route; only 19 percent are “concentrating” in career and technical education (i.e., earning at least three credits in a single CTE program area).

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