Written By: Dale Marsden, EdD., Chief Visionary/Founder
College Is Not a Guarantee. Experience Has to Be the Plan.
Let’s name the emergency plainly.
We have built large parts of public education on a promise that no longer holds: get students to a bachelor’s degree and the labor market will reward them with stability and prosperity. That promise is now unreliable, and the data is not subtle about it.
In Talent Disrupted, the Burning Glass Institute and Strada Education Foundation find that 52 percent of graduates with a terminal bachelor’s degree are underemployed one year after graduation. A decade later, 45 percent are still underemployed. Ten years. That is not a “rough start.” That’s a damning trajectory.
If you lead a district, a school, a classroom, or a policy agenda, the takeaway is not “college is bad.” The takeaway is that the old method, which is largely academic preparation separated from real labor market exposure, cannot be expected to produce modern results. The solution is not mysterious. We already know what moves outcomes. Getting students connected to the real world of work early and often through internships, apprenticeships and other forms of work-based learning has huge impacts on their future career prospects.
The problem is not only underemployment. It is how long it lasts.
Talent Disrupted makes one point that education leaders should repeat until it becomes policy: the first job after graduation is critical. Graduates who start in a college-level job rarely slide into underemployment. The report finds that 79 percent of those who start in a college-level job remain in a college-level occupation five years after graduation. Of those in a college-level job at year five, 86 percent are still in a college-level job at year ten. (Burning Glass Institute and Strada Education Foundation)
The reverse is just as important. Underemployment is “sticky.” The report finds 73 percent of graduates who start out underemployed remain underemployed ten years after completing college. (Burning Glass Institute and Strada Education Foundation)
This is where public education has to be honest with itself. If we tell students, especially students who are first-generation and students from communities of poverty, “Go to college and it will work out,” we are asking them to risk years of effort, years of opportunity cost, and often significant debt, on an outcome that is not guaranteed.
The report also quantifies why the stakes are so high. A recent graduate in a college-level job typically earns about 88 percent more than a high school diploma holder, while an underemployed graduate typically earns about 25 percent more than someone with no education beyond high school. (Burning Glass Institute and Strada Education Foundation) That gap is not cosmetic. It shapes housing, family stability, health, and whether a young adult can afford to keep learning.
The “holy grail” problem: When the degree is treated as the finish line
For decades, the baccalaureate degree has been treated as the holy grail of public education. In many communities, especially high-poverty communities and traditionally marginalized communities with lower bachelor’s attainment rates, the logic has been: push harder on college enrollment, and opportunity will follow.
But if about half of terminal bachelor’s graduates are underemployed at year one, and nearly half are still underemployed at year ten, then enrollment alone is not the strategy. We cannot keep acting like the diploma is the bridge. The bridge is a combination of classroom preparation, experience,relationships and navigation.
This is where “college and career ready” has to change meaning. Career readiness is not a senior-year resume workshop. College readiness is not only a transcript. Readiness has to include exposure, practice, and feedback loops that begin early, build over time, and become real in high school.
Internships are not an “extra.” They are a lever.
Talent Disrupted highlights one factor with a strong relationship to better outcomes: internships.
Controlling for factors such as gender, race and ethnicity, and institutional characteristics, the report finds that the odds of underemployment are 48.5 percent lower for graduates who had at least one internship compared to those who had no internships. (Burning Glass Institute and Strada Education Foundation)
That is not a marginal gain. That is the difference between a first job that launches a career and a first job that traps a graduate on the wrong side of the labor market.
The report also makes an equity point that education leaders should sit with. “Internships have the strongest relationship with Black graduates’ ability to obtain college-level jobs compared to other racial groups.” (Burning Glass Institute and Strada Education Foundation) In other words, work-based learning is not only a workforce strategy. It is an access strategy. It is one way to counteract the unequal distribution of networks and insider knowledge.
And if anyone is tempted to tell students, “If it doesn’t work out, just go get a graduate degree,” the report is clear there too: “Earning a graduate degree is not a sure bet.” (Burning Glass Institute and Strada Education Foundation)
What this means for K–12: back-map from the labor market
If we accept these findings, the leadership move is to back-map.
If the first job after college is critical, then students should not arrive at college as first-time consumers of career information. If internships can cut the odds of underemployment nearly in half, then students should not first learn what an internship is halfway through college.
We need to find better ways to connect our students to industry as early as elementary school, and it is imperative they have interactions in high school. Not a career day photo-op. Interactions that are sustained, rigorous, and connected to skills.
This is where “try before you buy” becomes a moral and financial argument. College is costly. Students should be able to test interests, see real workplaces, and understand pathways before they commit years and money to a plan that might not match the labor market.
Students in traditionally marginalized communities and communities of poverty need the same kind of treatment as they might get in wealthy communities. Lots of exposure, lots of experiences, lots of hands-on, lots of, “Hey, meet this guy, he does what you’re interested in doing.” Our high poverty communities do not get that at the same rate or with the same quality.
So the question becomes operational: how do we create these rigorous relevant experiences early and often for students so that they can build Resume-Worthy Experiences©?
A local example, industry-agnostic on purpose
Picture an inner-city high school where students are in a pathway that includes modern production skills. Some are training toward roles like CNC operator and welder-fabricator. The students are doing the right things: showing up, building competencies, earning credits, taking the pathway seriously.
Then graduation comes, and the labor market does what it does. Entry-level roles are competitive. Employers prefer experience. Students who have never set foot in a real shop environment, never worked under production constraints, never learned workplace norms, and never built relationships with working adults, can get filtered out quickly. Not because they are not capable, but because they are unknown.
Now change one thing. Put those same students into rigorous, real-world experiences: structured job-site visits in ninth grade, paid project-based work in tenth, and internships by eleventh and twelfth grade. Pair them with mentors who can explain hiring processes, expectations, and how to translate classroom work into workplace value. Help them build a professional network before they are desperate for one.
This is the “foot in the door” problem, and it is solvable. The data says that a single internship has a strong relationship to better outcomes, even after controlling for other factors. (Burning Glass Institute and Strada Education Foundation) That is why this cannot be left to chance, family connections, or the few students who already know how to navigate systems.
What education leaders can do in 2026
These three moves should be non-negotiable for any education system that takes student success after graduation seriously:
- Start career exposure in elementary school. Students should leave elementary school aware that work exists beyond the walls of their school, and that adults do many kinds of jobs. Begin building vocabulary, curiosity, and dignity around work.
- Make middle school a time of exploration with feedback. Use interest and aptitude tools responsibly, not as tracking, but as insight. Give students multiple chances to see where interests, talents, and opportunities intersect. Begin the habit of reflection: what did I try, what did I learn, what do I want to try next?
- Make high school the place where experience becomes real. Every student should graduate having produced multiple Resume-Worthy Experiences©, including at least one substantial work-based learning experience. In some communities and industries that will mean internships. In others it will include apprenticeships, pre-apprenticeships, clinical rotations, employer projects, or paid summer experiences. The format can vary. The requirement should not.
This is not about narrowing kids. It is about widening access to information, experience, and relationships that the labor market rewards.
At Tomorrow’s Talent®, we back-map exactly this way, working from the belief that students need rigorous relevant experiences early and often, especially in communities that have historically been denied networks and exposure. This is a critical moment for the nation, but the work needs to be done locally to truly stick.