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0:57

Now how do you tell somebody

0:59

who What a good life

1:01

means is to find on their

1:03

own terms. I'm John Glenn Hill.

1:05

This is explaining to me.

1:07

The show where you call in. I guess

1:10

I'm calling because I want to

1:12

know how do people choose what

1:14

they do after like college or

1:16

high school or when they're

1:18

going to join the workforce.

1:20

This feels like such a

1:22

different landscape now than it

1:25

was for my parents. And

1:27

we get you answers. The landscape

1:29

really is different right now. Other

1:31

people are wondering what to do

1:33

after graduation too. I had no

1:35

idea until this year what the

1:37

heck I was doing after high

1:40

school. That's Erica. She called us

1:42

from Dallas, Texas. She's going to

1:44

UT Austin this fall. Longhorn Nation.

1:47

Hook them. B-L-U. And she did have

1:49

a little bit of an idea of what

1:51

she might do after graduation. I knew

1:53

I went to college because... like

1:55

99% of the kids at my

1:57

high school go to a four-year

2:00

college after. like junior year we

2:02

have an assembly and they say

2:04

look this is how you apply

2:06

to college they don't even mention

2:08

trade school or anything like that

2:11

like it's not it's I mean

2:13

it's an option but like at

2:15

my school they don't advertise it.

2:17

I relate to Erica's experience it

2:19

represents what the last few decades

2:21

of American high school education policy

2:24

have looked like preparing every single

2:26

student for college no matter what

2:28

and It can be hard to

2:30

resist that pull. Yeah, there definitely

2:32

is a stigma around it. I

2:34

don't know a single person that's

2:37

not going to some type of

2:39

university. I only know one person

2:41

that's going to a two-year. But

2:43

remember that landscape the first caller

2:45

was talking about? It's different in

2:47

2025. Gen Z and Gen Alpha

2:50

have seen the toll of student

2:52

debt and often say they don't

2:54

want to take that on. They're

2:56

not certain college will be the

2:58

right fit for them. Having more

3:00

options to choose from requires some

3:03

evolution from the way we've always

3:05

done things. At least, that's what

3:07

Chelsea Waite says. She studies education

3:09

policy at the Center on Reinventing

3:11

Public Education at Arizona State. Where

3:13

we research how do education systems

3:16

become better and sort of evolve

3:18

and in some ways remake themselves

3:20

to better serve every student in

3:22

America? To understand what to change,

3:24

Chelsea says we have to understand

3:26

where this college for all policy

3:29

came from in the first place.

3:31

When high schools kind of first

3:33

started in the US, they were

3:35

not universal, and they were really

3:37

sort of designed for elites, largely

3:39

white, male, middle and upper class,

3:42

students who would go to high

3:44

school as a way to kind

3:46

of get them to higher education

3:48

in order to then go into

3:50

these leadership roles in society. Then

3:52

in the 1910s to 1940s, there

3:55

was a big high school movement

3:57

that basically made high school as

3:59

kind of like mass education for

4:01

everyone. And the idea there is

4:03

that we have a responsibility as

4:05

a society to make sure that

4:08

young people are prepared for the

4:10

world that they move into as

4:12

adults. And for some of them,

4:14

that might mean college. For others,

4:16

it might mean they're sort of

4:18

better working with their hands, and

4:21

they should be in a different

4:23

kind of job or career. And

4:25

as time went on, it became

4:27

very clear that who got sort

4:29

of identified to go to college

4:31

and who was getting sort of...

4:34

identified by Let's like put you

4:36

into a vocational program. It became

4:38

very clear that there was major

4:40

inequality in who got access to

4:42

what path. Yeah, I remember my

4:44

dad telling me the story of,

4:47

you know, he was getting ready

4:49

to go off to college and

4:51

his school counselor was like, maybe

4:53

you should just join the military

4:55

and like phrased it like that,

4:57

which is... Yeah. Feels weird for

5:00

a number of reasons. Totally. Take

5:02

your dad's experience and then compare

5:04

it to sort of how you

5:06

described your experience and I think

5:08

that's a great representation of what

5:10

changed from maybe the 1950s to

5:13

70s all the way to the

5:15

80s, 90s and early 2000s where

5:17

there was really this recognition that

5:19

we actually need to sort of

5:21

push for college as the North

5:23

Star for every student. Well I

5:26

think that this is a time

5:28

though for you to realize. that

5:30

as a young college graduate, you

5:32

are among the most fortunate people

5:34

on earth. Now fast forward to

5:37

sort of where we are now.

5:39

There has been a lot of

5:41

reckoning about how pushing every student

5:43

to go to college and take

5:45

on the cost of college without

5:47

necessarily being really clear about what

5:50

they want it to do for

5:52

them means that we have a

5:54

lot of students across the board

5:56

who enroll in college and then

5:58

never complete a degree, take on

6:00

a ton of debt, and generally

6:03

kind of like... struggle to make

6:05

college really work for them as

6:07

a jumping off path to the

6:09

rest of their career. So where

6:11

we are now, I let us

6:13

study for the Center on Reinventing

6:16

Public Education on high schools in

6:18

New England specifically, but I've heard

6:20

from many other high school leaders

6:22

across the nation that our findings

6:24

really resonate with them too. What

6:26

we were trying to learn is

6:29

in this post-pandemic landscape has the

6:31

purpose of high school shifted at

6:33

all. Like how do you define

6:35

success for high school students? And

6:37

we talked with administrators, teachers, parents,

6:39

and students in six high schools

6:42

over the course of two years.

6:44

And what we found is that

6:46

the vision that they painted was

6:48

that they want every single student

6:50

in that school to have a

6:52

pathway to a good life and

6:55

what a good life means is

6:57

defined on their own terms. Does

6:59

this shift come from the students

7:01

themselves or is it coming from

7:03

somewhere else? Some of us from

7:05

students themselves. Students are genuinely questioning

7:08

if college is worth it and

7:10

if college is really the right

7:12

thing for them, knowing what they

7:14

know about themselves. What we're hearing

7:16

from students is that choosing to

7:18

go to college brings like financial

7:21

risk. There's an emotional toll that

7:23

students describe where college is really

7:25

high pressure or it can feel

7:27

really high pressure. There's kind of

7:29

social pressure and social dynamics that

7:31

students are not sure that they

7:34

really want to take on, especially

7:36

again coming out of the pandemic.

7:38

Some students didn't even get a

7:40

real full high school experience and

7:42

they describe to us not necessarily

7:44

feeling ready to just sort of

7:47

jump into the to the college

7:49

experience. And I think it's really

7:51

a testament to students knowing what

7:53

they themselves need when they're able

7:55

to kind of look at the

7:57

thing that most people might see

8:00

as like the best path and

8:02

say, look, I don't know if

8:04

that's my best path. Parents are

8:06

saying they want their kids to

8:08

have a good life, you know,

8:10

they just want their kids to

8:13

be happy. And I think every

8:15

generation of parents to some degree

8:17

would say that. But are parents

8:19

really okay if that means their

8:21

kids aren't going to college? It's

8:23

mixed. And I think there's, there's,

8:26

we're in a moment right now.

8:28

A lot of people are kind

8:30

of wrestling with this question. What

8:32

we heard from many parents is

8:34

that they really wanted their child

8:36

to make the best choice for

8:39

them. And some parents really were

8:41

willing to say, look, if college,

8:43

especially if college right after graduation,

8:45

is not the best choice for

8:47

my kid, I want to support

8:50

what's going to be best for

8:52

my kid. And I think parents

8:54

are also seeing the data. They're

8:56

seeing the evidence that college is

8:58

really expensive. It doesn't always pay

9:00

off. There still is clear evidence

9:03

that more education over your lifetime

9:05

does mean more lifetime earnings on

9:07

average, but the average is key

9:09

there, where if you actually look

9:11

at the spread from the lowest

9:13

to the highest earners at different

9:16

levels of educational attainment, there's a

9:18

whole lot of overlap. So basically

9:20

some people with less education end

9:22

up earning far more than people,

9:24

even with more education than they

9:26

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I told you so! I told

12:59

you so! We're back, it's explained

13:01

to me. With attitudes about college

13:03

evolving, high schools are starting to

13:05

expose their students to more things

13:07

so they can make a more

13:09

informed decision about what to do

13:12

after graduation. Well, my name is

13:14

Dr. Megan Drummond. I'm the assistant

13:16

director of Northland Career Center in

13:18

the Platt County School District in

13:20

Platt City, Missouri. So for high

13:22

schools in the Kansas City area,

13:25

Megan's Career Center is getting pretty

13:27

popular. We are a career and

13:29

technical center for juniors and seniors

13:31

in high school. We have what

13:33

we call like our human services

13:35

programs and our skilled trades programs.

13:37

We kind of have two different

13:40

like umbrellas that a lot of

13:42

our classes fall under. Your human

13:44

services are going to be things

13:46

like health sciences, culinary arts, law

13:48

enforcement, teaching professions, things like that.

13:50

skilled trades are going to be

13:52

kind of what you traditionally think

13:55

are welding, diesel technology, construction, HVAC,

13:57

things like that, that are, you're

13:59

more traditional skilled trades. Yeah, how-

14:01

the program work exactly like okay

14:03

a student is like I want

14:05

to try this I want to

14:08

do this when do they come

14:10

in and what do they do?

14:12

So students that might be interested

14:14

in shadowing would shadow their sophomore

14:16

or junior year of high school

14:18

to then be admitted for the

14:20

following school year. What do you

14:23

all do to prepare students for

14:25

that for that work environment? Each

14:27

of our programs They have industry

14:29

certifications that are tied to those

14:31

programs. Sometimes age can be a

14:33

factor, but to prepare for those

14:36

different exams, what they're doing is

14:38

practicing their skills out in the

14:40

shop. For our teaching professions program,

14:42

they actually go out into surrounding

14:44

elementary schools in our area and

14:46

they're interning and they're acting as

14:48

a... student teacher in a way.

14:51

But we try and give students

14:53

as much real world experience as

14:55

possible through the coursework they're doing

14:57

in class, as well as through

14:59

internship opportunities, actually in the industry,

15:01

whatever industry they've decided on, give

15:04

them those real world experiences. Are

15:06

they still doing like... I guess

15:08

what we think of the typical

15:10

high school classes, like is it

15:12

like, well, got to go to

15:14

calculus or got to, you know,

15:16

English, is that, are those classes

15:19

happening in tandem? For our students

15:21

specifically, they spend half of our

15:23

day with us, and then they

15:25

still spend half of their day

15:27

at their sending high school. So

15:29

oftentimes if they're sending high school,

15:31

they're getting those. traditional classes that

15:34

you think of. They're getting calculus.

15:36

They're getting PE. They're getting their

15:38

health class. They're getting English, things

15:40

like that. Two households, both alike

15:42

in Dignity and Farirona, where we

15:44

lay our scene. When they are

15:47

with us for two and a

15:49

half hours out of their school

15:51

day, they are of course getting

15:53

their technical education, whatever that looks

15:55

like in their program. But then

15:57

we also offer a embedded math

15:59

and English, and what's kind of

16:02

unique about what What we do

16:04

is that our math and English

16:06

is specifically tailored for whatever program

16:08

they're in. So if you are

16:10

in our health sciences program, your

16:12

math may look like converting CC's

16:15

two milliliters. In construction, their math

16:17

may be very geometry heavy. In

16:19

health sciences, you may have to

16:21

be typing up and writing about

16:23

patient care and what happened to

16:25

the patient this morning and they're

16:27

practicing those skills that they're going

16:30

to need. to have in industry.

16:32

Are the high schools that the

16:34

students are coming from? Are they

16:36

on board with this? They are

16:38

very, very on board. They are

16:40

constantly making sure that students are

16:43

coming in and shadowing, and if

16:45

we have offense, making sure that

16:47

those are promoted at our sending

16:49

high schools, so just that students

16:51

know and that there's awareness. What

16:53

are the most popular programs at

16:55

the school? You know, what do

16:58

students tend to lean towards? Ooh,

17:00

so I would say probably hands

17:02

down this this may or may

17:04

not surprise you but our welding

17:06

program every single year we have

17:08

a gigantic wait list of students

17:10

and I think that that's just

17:13

due to the allure of the

17:15

industry itself and also just the

17:17

ability to have a really high

17:19

paying job straight at a high

17:21

school with no college debt is

17:23

I think very appealing to a

17:26

lot of our students. I would

17:28

also say our health sciences program

17:30

and that probably comes as no

17:32

surprise because we need health care

17:34

professionals. What do you hear from

17:36

students when they talk about what

17:38

they want out of life after

17:41

they graduate? The main thing that

17:43

we're hearing is that like skilled

17:45

trades especially, those are a lot

17:47

of kids that maybe they don't

17:49

want to go to college and

17:51

that's totally fine. They want to

17:54

be able to have that flexibility

17:56

though and use their two-year training

17:58

that they've had with Northland Career

18:00

Center. to go out somewhere, work

18:02

hard, be successful, and make a

18:04

really good living. and support their

18:06

family. Growing up, these conversations about

18:09

alternatives never happen. I even went

18:11

to a college preparatory middle school,

18:13

which, you know, is a lot

18:15

for a middle schooler. I mean,

18:17

but a generation ago, were there

18:19

programs, like the ones you have

18:22

that were appealing to mainstream kids

18:24

around the country, or, you know,

18:26

is this idea of. post graduation

18:28

can look a lot of different

18:30

ways. Is that a new idea?

18:32

I mean, career and technical schools

18:34

have been around for a hot

18:37

minute. That necessarily isn't a new

18:39

or revolutionary idea. But I think

18:41

when I was in high school,

18:43

it was you need to go

18:45

to college or you're not going

18:47

to be successful. And that's just

18:50

not true. I mean, some of

18:52

our students that leave Northland Career

18:54

Center. They have zero student debt

18:56

and they're making more money than

18:58

I do, straight out of high

19:00

school, because steel trades are never

19:02

going to go away. Like our

19:05

health care and health sciences students,

19:07

they're always going to be needed

19:09

in the industry. Police officers, they're

19:11

always going to be needed. So

19:13

all of these programs are very

19:15

relevant to things that we directly

19:17

need in our community, and I

19:20

think that's what our school. at

19:22

the core is doing is trying

19:24

to prepare our students to be

19:26

productive members of our community and

19:28

of our society. And I think

19:30

that that's why we're successful as

19:33

we are is because of that

19:35

additional preparation that we offer for

19:37

our kids. When we come back,

19:39

we're gonna look at a different

19:41

idea. A civil service year. That's

19:43

after this break. This

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to get started. Pod today to get

20:48

started. We're back. It's explained to me

20:51

and we've been talking about the changing

20:53

attitudes around this idea that every single

20:55

high school senior should go to college

20:57

when they graduate. Kristen Bennet with the

20:59

Service Year Alliance represents a different path.

21:02

We're an organization that is promoting a

21:04

year of paid full-time service as an

21:06

option for individuals. Whether you want to

21:08

do it after high school, you want

21:10

to do it after college, we do

21:12

just want to see it become much

21:14

more of the menu that is put

21:16

in front of young people as they're

21:19

growing up in our country and thinking

21:21

about what they want to do next

21:23

in life. I think we ask a

21:25

lot in the just grow up and

21:27

go to college narrative for a 17

21:29

or 18 year old to make

21:32

a pretty big decision and a

21:34

year of service can be an

21:36

opportunity for someone to gain professional

21:39

skills, you know, mature and learn

21:41

more about themselves, learn about some

21:43

real issues in their communities while

21:45

being paid. getting health insurance and

21:48

at the end to getting an

21:50

education award that will help them

21:52

if they want to go on

21:54

to a four-year university,

21:57

a community college, a

21:59

trade school. something else but

22:01

it gives them a leg up

22:03

in that way. So we're wanting

22:05

to put this out there is

22:08

one of the many options that

22:10

we are hoping that as individuals

22:12

come to the end of high

22:14

school they are given and that

22:16

they can consider. What does a

22:19

service year look like? The majority

22:21

of them are offered through AmeriCorps?

22:23

which we kind of often refer

22:25

to as kind of like the

22:28

domestic peace corps. But whether you're

22:30

interested in being a school setting,

22:32

like tutoring children or mentoring youth.

22:34

Or if you want to be

22:37

out in the wilderness helping to

22:39

blaze trails and reduce wildfire challenges,

22:41

you know, like in brush, like

22:43

there's so many different ways you

22:45

can do it. You commit a

22:48

year, you go address a need

22:50

by delivering service while being trained

22:52

and gaining skills and getting a

22:54

living stipend along the way so

22:57

that you can support yourself. What

22:59

are some of the skills that,

23:01

you know, grads are gathering as

23:03

they're doing this service year? So

23:06

usually there's the specific skills that

23:08

you'll obtain that are tied to

23:10

the service itself, right? So you

23:12

might leave with some very hard

23:15

skills, say if you were... focus

23:17

on energy efficiency and part of

23:19

what you learn to do was

23:21

weatherize homes or install solar panels.

23:23

So there's those types of opportunities.

23:26

There's skills that you might learn

23:28

if you want to pursue a

23:30

career in education, being in a

23:32

school, learning how to work with

23:35

children, learning how to deliver interventions

23:37

in that sense. So there's very

23:39

specifics depending on the service you

23:41

choose and what you take on,

23:44

and then there's more universal things.

23:46

We have learned that people who

23:48

do a year of service are

23:50

more likely to say civically engaged

23:53

afterwards, so they're more likely to

23:55

vote, they're more likely to volunteer

23:57

ongoing, and even potentially more interesting,

23:59

we've learned that they're also more

24:01

inclined and interested in having conversations

24:04

and working with people who they

24:06

disagree with. How do you go

24:08

about making sure that something like

24:10

this is equitable? You know, there's

24:13

only like a certain group of

24:15

young people who don't actually need

24:17

to work and can kind of

24:19

hit that pause button. Who's paying

24:22

people to do this work? This

24:24

is a really important part of

24:26

it. Most of these opportunities are

24:28

public-private partnerships. So there's federal dollars

24:30

from AmeriCorps that fund a lot

24:33

of these, and then there's more

24:35

than one-to-one match of funds that

24:37

are coming from philanthropy or from

24:39

school systems or other local sources

24:42

that do go into paying each

24:44

person. One of the reasons why

24:46

we think it's important that there

24:48

be really solid wrap around benefits

24:51

and supports for someone in service

24:53

is so that it can be

24:55

something that regardless of your socioeconomic

24:57

background or what kind of like

25:00

financial safety net you might have

25:02

that you can do this. Okay,

25:04

Kristen, we got a call from

25:06

a listener asking about mandatory public

25:08

service. My name is Gabriel Connors.

25:11

I'm calling from Chicago, Illinois. And

25:13

my question is about mandatory civic

25:15

service. So solving problems, at least

25:17

trying to solve problems together for

25:20

the nation, specific communities, bringing folks

25:22

together from across whatever, class, lines,

25:24

demographic lines, to just work on

25:26

cool stuff. Would that not help

25:29

our division in this country? I

25:31

think the John has great, great

25:33

points and is thinking about this

25:35

in... in a way that I

25:38

can really relate to. There has

25:40

not been a lot of political

25:42

support in our country. for mandatory

25:44

service, like compulsory service, but at

25:46

the same time, I don't think

25:49

it needs to be mandatory for

25:51

more people to be able to

25:53

do it and for these types

25:55

of experiences to exist at scale

25:58

and to play a much bigger

26:00

role in bringing people together. So

26:02

one of the benefits I think

26:04

to a year of service is

26:07

the fact that someone chooses to

26:09

do it. That allows people to

26:11

be motivated by so many different

26:13

things to come to the table.

26:15

Like we've heard this a lot

26:18

from veterans, right, in the military

26:20

space, that when you're out in

26:22

the trenches together, it does not

26:24

matter who you voted for, where

26:27

you came from, or which God

26:29

you may or may not pray

26:31

to, at the end of the

26:33

day, we're on a mission together

26:36

and that's like what we have

26:38

to solve. And they leave those

26:40

experiences with such strong connections to

26:42

those people. because of that common

26:45

mission and common experience. That happens

26:47

in service years as well. I'm

26:49

curious, what got you so passionate

26:51

about this? Like kind of what

26:53

sparked it for you? Amongst the

26:56

2008 recession, I did a year

26:58

of AmeriCorps, helping connect low-income families

27:00

with resources that already existed. Tax

27:02

credits, food stamps, job supports, different

27:05

things like that in my hometown

27:07

and was exposed to more need,

27:09

both from services needing to be

27:11

delivered in communities, to also peers

27:14

around me that were trying to

27:16

figure out what to do with

27:18

their lives. So it's that vision

27:20

that brings me to this every

27:23

day and the hope that I

27:25

can help other people have the

27:27

experience that I was fortunate enough

27:29

to have. The Executive Director of

27:31

Service Year alone. Before we let

27:34

you we let

27:36

you go, we're

27:38

working on an

27:40

episode about the

27:43

economy and how

27:45

it's affecting people

27:47

who are retired people

27:49

who to retire. or

27:52

Is that you

27:54

or your parents?

27:56

or your Maybe your

27:58

grandparents? your Do

28:00

you have questions

28:03

about the future

28:05

of your questions about the

28:07

security? your Maybe

28:09

you're wondering, what's

28:12

up with Medicare? Maybe

28:14

Give us a

28:16

call at 1

28:18

-800 -618 Give us a call

28:21

at you can

28:23

send us an

28:25

email to can send us

28:27

an.com. Ask Vox at Vox. This

28:31

episode was produced by Victoria

28:33

Chamberlain. It was edited by our

28:35

executive producer Miranda Kennedy, by

28:37

our Check the Facts, Matthew producer

28:39

and thanks to Patrick Boyd,

28:42

too. Barrett, Check our

28:44

show. And I'm

28:46

your host, engineered, Thanks

28:48

for listening. to Talk

28:51

to you soon. Boyd

28:53

Bye. Bye. Javier runs our show.

28:55

And I'm your host, John Flynn Hill.

28:57

Thanks for listening. Talk to you soon.

28:59

Bye.