Our young people are coming of age at a time of major shifts in the fundamental nature of work. At the same time, students are facing what retired president and CEO of American Student Assistance Jean Eddy calls a “crisis of thrivability.”
As Jean explains, to prepare our youth to compete in a changing world where the stakes are often higher than they were for their parents, we must help them unlock the competencies they need to succeed.
This can be done by providing all kids with access to learning experiences both inside and, vitally, outside the classroom — in their communities, homes, and in the digital spaces they love and trust.
“We must help kids find joy that exists at the intersection of what they’re good at, what they can be paid for, what the world needs, and what they love. This new way of thinking about self, passion, and skills can help the youth of today become truly crisis-proof,” Jean wrote.
Given this mandate, how we prepare young people to enter the world of work successfully must differ from the model to which we’re accustomed.
Gen Z Workers Aren’t Closing Employers’ Skills Gaps
Every young person should have the opportunity to earn a family-sustaining income as an adult. Yet according to a report by the Living Wage Institute and Dayforce, 44% of full-time American workers did not meet this goal in 2024.
The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, which tracks high school graduation rates, reported that nearly four million American students finished secondary school in 2025. But despite the number of graduates, disconnected systems prevent many of these young people from transitioning to an economically mobile career. Ultimately, we end up with far more open positions than people available to fill them.
While some of the mismatch may be due to geographic factors, much of it also relates to an accelerating skills and experience gap. Jobs may exist, but requisite skills and experience do not. Whether after high school, military service, or college, too few young people entering the workforce are equipped with the knowledge and skills that employers require today.
In fact, new data from pre-employment skills testing firm Criteria found that just eight percent of hiring managers feel that Gen-Z workers are well-prepared for the modern workplace. Among the complaints about today’s college graduates: they lack interpersonal sophistication and problem-solving abilities, they don’t possess the right technical skills or deploy technology incorrectly, and they don’t have the work ethic necessary to sustain full-time employment.
Why has this become such a dire situation? To start, most employers are not adequately prepared to retrain, schools have not adapted to support and implement comprehensive and integrated workforce-ready programs for all, and community employment organizations are insufficiently connected to schools.
Additionally, communication among these three parties remains limited and less collaborative than needed.
High-Quality Work-Based Learning Is the Ideal Connector
These challenges can be ameliorated when every high school student, whether college-bound or not, participates in a work-based learning (WBL) program that helps them develop career-ready skills and enables them to make more informed decisions about their next steps.
WBL is learning by working, and it can play a key role in preparing learners to navigate today’s volatility. When the education sector, employers, and community organizations mobilize to build creative programs that focus on both the learners’ future and community economic vitality, individuals, employers, and communities will prosper.
The WBL umbrella includes pre-apprenticeships and apprenticeships, practicums, and clinicals. It is also part of the secondary and postsecondary education system, including immersive experiences such as internships, youth apprenticeships, and job shadowing, as well as broader career awareness and exploration activities.
All definitions of WBL involve providing a work-aligned experience as part of one’s education for the purpose of preparing for a potential career.
However, high-quality WBL can be challenging to implement at scale.
“Schools and employers often lack the structures or resources to build and scale partnerships,” said Tom Vander Ark, WBL advocate and CEO of learning design and advocacy firm Getting Smart. “Logistics, safety concerns, and timing can get in the way of opportunity. Overcoming these barriers is possible, and when done right, WBL gives students meaningful experiences that prepare them for success.”
Launching a WBL program may be worthwhile and highly effective for closing skills gaps in the long-term, but sometimes it’s not an easy journey. The core tenets of schooling in the U.S. are well established and suffer from significant inertia. And even if they are adequately funded, WBL initiatives still need to contend with entrenched biases about what constitutes a real education.
Fortunately, you don’t have to do it alone. Starting small, using early successes to build traction, and recruiting a neutral voice in the ecosystem such as a WBL intermediary, are solid strategies for overcoming change resistance and getting a fresh and innovative initiative off the ground.
