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Connecting College and Career Success

“There are many key moments when postsecondary preparation and persistence intersect with career preparation. Career exploration in middle or high school, an effective choice of college major and postsecondary institution, working during college, and the acquisition of non-cognitive skills can all improve rates of college access and completion as well as employment for our students.” – Kim Cook, NCAN CEO

 College access and success cannot be separated from career preparation. The National College Attainment Network (NCAN) views this work as the "next frontier" for our field, much as we have made the pivot from college access to college success in the last several years. To help members incorporate career readiness services into their programming, we share tools and resources that make the college success/career intersections more explicit, highlight successful programs that are already making the college success/career connection, and build capacity to make this pivot smoother. 

Definition of College and Career Readiness

There are many but most definitions point to ensuring that students are prepared to be successful in the postsecondary pursuit of their choosing. For many NCAN members, this means ensuring that high school graduates are prepared for a full range of postsecondary opportunities, but this could also apply to adult learners. Many states have developed very explicit definitions of college and career readiness that specify the knowledge, skills, and abilities students must demonstrate in order to meet state standards. These definitions address areas such as:
  • Academic preparedness
  • Critical thinking and problem solving
  • Social and emotional learning
  • Communication and working in teams
  • Community involvement and citizenship
  • Grit and perseverance

Some states require that students explore their postsecondary interests and make personalized plans to determine how to achieve them. Few mention very specific workforce preparation skills such as resume writing, interviewing skills, or internships.

Tools and Resources

Below are some of the tools and resources NCAN has curated to help members think through their role in ensuring students are college and career ready. Programs may decide to expand their service offerings to include career readiness or partner with a local organization that already provides these services to ensure their students can access them. In all cases, we believe the goal of this work is to equip all students with the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to make an informed choice about the postsecondary path they would like to pursue.

Web sites

  • Achieve does work in the area of college and career readiness. Their website includes information on college and career readiness standards, assessments, graduation requirements and accountability mechanisms. The site includes a number of resources that represent the business perspective including a set of resources for businesses to help them think through how to best support college and career readiness for all students.
  • The College and Career Readiness Center at the American Institutes of Research, which operated from 2012-2019, developed a framework and accompanying module to help communities integrate and prioritize employability skills at the state and local levels. The site contains access to slides, handouts, and even a facilitator's guide to help communities define, assess, and integrate employability skills at the state and district levels.
  • Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce studies the link between education, career qualifications, and workforce demands. The Center conducts research in three core areas with the goal of better aligning education and training with workforce and labor market demand: jobs, skills, and equity. Their website includes reports, blog posts, op-eds, and videos that link the inequities found between education and workforce.
  • The Center on Education and Labor at New America is chock full of resources on a range of topics focused on building more pathways into middle class jobs. 
  • The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation Center for Education and Workforce mobilizes the business community to be more engaged partners and connect education and workforce reforms to economic development. The site includes a list of programs and initiatives addressing the gaps in early childhood and K-12 education and the workforce. 

Research, Documents, and Tools

  • Connecting College and Career Success: Implementing and Managing Services for Students (2018) is a white paper from NCAN that focuses on the lessons learned from four presenters at NCAN's National Conference:
    • ACCESS College Foundation (Norfolk, VA) presented “Establishing Organizational Priorities,” a discussion of how programs know when they want to grow and expand into a new direction of work and how they can tell if they are ready to do so.
    • Partnership for the Future's (Glen Allen, VA) “Managing Your Work” laid out processes that programs can use to ensure students, staff, and business partners are aligned and working in the same direction.
    • Students Rising Above (San Francisco, CA) presented “Preparing Your Advisors” for career success and focused on the topics advisors need to know, how to educate advisors on those topics, and concerns about mission creep.
    • Genesys Works (Houston, TX) described the critical activity of “Partnering with Business” to provide meaningful work-based opportunities for students.
  • Connecting College and Career Success: Lessons on Advising, Data, and Partnerships is a white paper from NCAN with lessons learned from our 2017 Spring Training series. It focuses on the lessons learned from this series and suggests resources members can use to further their understanding of this area. From programs just embarking on this work to those that have been committed to it for years, our hope is that herein are lessons contained for everyone. This paper is divided into sections on integrating career success into advising, identifying relevant career and workforce data, and the importance of partnerships for career success.
  • Career Readiness: A Business-Led Approach for Supporting K-12 Schools from the U.S. Chamber Foundation offers a definition of career readiness and provides recommendations for how the business community can be instrumental in addressing challenges of implementing them.
  • The Economic Value of College Majors from Georgetown’s CEW uses Census Data to analyze the wages/earning potential/economic benefit of specific college majors.
  • Launch My Career is a series of websites developed jointly by College Measures, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation and Gallup. Currently available for Colorado, Tennessee, and Texas, the interactive site provides information about the return on investment from a certificate or degree from public postsecondary institutions.
  • Published in 2014, the Overview: State Definitions of College and Career Readiness from the CCRS Center analyzes state level definitions of college and career readiness.
  • The CED report published in 2018 Building Supports for Successful Transitions Into the Workforce: Community Conversations with Business Leaders & Parents explores the remarkable similarities expressed by business leaders and parents want for their employees/children -- and an enormous gap between those aspirations and what high schools are delivering. The report also suggests strategies for improving career readiness, including improving communication among stakeholders, hosting career fairs to inform students, parents, and educators about available careers within the region, providing a full range of work-based learning opportunities to students, improving counseling and mentoring focused on career readiness, and  modeling and reinforcing soft skills and dispositions for students.

Additional Resources