The pathway from school to stable employment—once taken as a given—is more broken than ever. A college degree is still the most established gateway to steady work and good wages, but that route favors young people with the financial resources, social networks, and know-how to navigate a confusing and fragmented postsecondary landscape.
The entire educational pipeline is leaky, and there’s attrition at every transition point. Looking at the educational progress of incoming ninth graders, the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems tracked how many incoming 9th graders ultimately go on to graduate from high school, start and persist in postsecondary education, and graduate on time with a bachelor’s degree, associate degree, or one-year certificate. Only 18-25% do so.
Moreover, with some notable exceptions, education systems have limited connections to employers, relatively few work-based learning opportunities, and insufficient guidance to support career navigation. It’s entirely possible to graduate from high school or college with little understanding of actual career options, minimal practical employment skills, and few professional contacts. Schools and employers have few shared benchmarks outlining the skill requirements for different industries and occupations, how to obtain those skills, and how to measure them.
It’s not surprising, then, that many young people flounder—churning through low-wage jobs or stopping out of postsecondary education. An estimated 4.2M people ages 16 to 24 in the United States are disconnected from both school and work, accounting for nearly 11% of their age group.
We need a broader set of options to develop knowledge and skills, coupled with more transparent and functional on-ramps to the labor market. These options should mix classroom and applied learning, build strong relationships with employers, and offer chances for students to develop social and professional networks that can smooth the way to careers. Work-based learning opportunities such as internships, job shadowing, job-site visits, and apprenticeships all fit the bill.
And while there is no one catch-all solution to fix the broken school-to-employment system, the Service and Conservation Corps programs offer an especially promising path forward.
Service and Conservation Corps Are a Strong Model
Service and Conservation Corps are local organizations that engage young adults, typically ages 16 to 30, in service projects addressing a variety of community needs, including land and water management, infrastructure, and disaster response. Corpsmembers build and maintain trails, restore habitats, respond to wildfires and floods, plant trees, weatherproof homes, and more. These are paid, hands-on work experiences in which corpsmembers provide real benefits to their communities while gaining valuable skills.
And corps projects are natural stepping stones to careers in related fields. My colleague Joseph W. Kane and I identified more than 80 relevant occupations with median wages of nearly $30 per hour—more than four times the federal minimum wage. The jobs fall into five “occupational families,” or groups of jobs that are aligned in some way. They may be in the same industry, have overlapping skill sets, or represent different nodes across a career pathway. The groups include buildings (construction, maintenance, and upgrading); utility-scale energy; utility-scale water; land and forest management; and hazardous materials remediation and disaster response.
Corps-related occupations have relatively low barriers to entry—about half of workers in those occupations have a high school diploma or less, and workers often gain job-specific skills through on-the-job training or apprenticeships.
The demand for workers with the skills developed by corps programs is apparent. Aging and vulnerable water infrastructure, inefficient and outmoded energy facilities, and outdated residential and commercial buildings all need upgrades and maintenance, requiring a continuous flow of talent. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) graded the nation’s infrastructure systems as a “C”, finding signs of deterioration in general but acute challenges in some elements and subsectors. At the same time, the infrastructure workforce needs replenishing, with an estimated 1.7M workers set to leave their jobs each year over the next decade.
Corps programs and related occupations can also provide workers with a sense of purpose, which almost nine out of 10 Gen Zs say is important for their job satisfaction and well-being. For example, members of the Louisiana Green Corps work on home weatherization, stormwater management, and urban forestry projects to make New Orleans more resilient in the face of disaster. And at Operation Fresh Start in Madison, Wis., participants build affordable housing and plant rain gardens that help reduce runoff and flooding risks. These corpsmembers aren’t just receiving a paycheck—they’re making the communities they live in stronger.
Investing in Our Shared Future
Corps programs provide opportunity youth with resume-building, real-world work experiences and pathways to stable, well-paying, in-demand jobs. Economic mobility doesn’t just improve the lives of individuals, it has a ripple effect on their families and communities.
Research demonstrates strong returns on investment for corps programs—delivering $7 for every $1 invested—through upgraded infrastructure, improved disaster resilience, and a next generation of workers equipped with the skills employers need most. Supporting economic mobility for young people doesn’t just improve the trajectory of their lives—it’s an investment in our shared future.
Martha Ross is a senior fellow at Brookings Metro.