Beyond College for All

A Volume in the American Sociological Association’s Rose Series in Sociology

Winner of the 2002 Willard Waller Award for Distinguished Scholarship

"An important indictment of the failed connection between high school and post-high school opportunities for American youth ... well worth reading."
-WORK AND OCCUPATIONS

"James Rosenbaum skillfully exposes as false many assumptions about the causes of unfruitful careers among the 'forgotten half' of high school students. He draws selectively from labor economics and organizational sociology and displays the rewarding analytical power of theoretical eclecticism when applied to a complex social phenomenon. His own explanation for why so many American high school students do not succeed in the marketplace arises from insightful institutional comparisons among the United States, Japan, and Germany. But ultimately it emerges from highly creative thinking about transactions of failed communication, misplaced incentives, and unfulfilled trust between teachers and students and between schools and employers. The book is theoretically rich and empirically compelling. It offers new and thought-provoking insights into a longstanding dilemma in educating the nation's youth for productive lives, and it offers guarded optimism about the future."
-DAVID L. FEATHERMAN, University of Michigan

"Beyond College For All presents an insightful analysis of the transition from high school to work in the United States. The work is theoretically rich, distinctive in its reliance on observational, anecdotal, and survey data, and practical in its recommendations. Researchers, graduate students, educators, and employers would profit from James Rosenbaum's work."
-MAUREEN T. HALLINAN, University of Notre Dame

In a society where everyone is supposed to go to college, the problems facing high school graduates who do not continue their education are often forgotten. Many cannot find jobs, and those who do are often stuck in low-wage, dead-end positions. Meanwhile employers complain that high school graduates lack the necessary skills for today's workplace. Beyond College for All focuses on this crisis in the American labor market. Around the world, author James E. Rosenbaum finds, employers view high school graduates as valuable workers. Why not here?

Rosenbaum reports on new studies of the interaction between employers and high schools in the United States. He concludes that each fails to communicate its needs to the other, leading to a predictable array of problems for young people in the years after graduation. High schools caught up in the college-for-all myth, provide little job advice or preparation, leading students to make unrealistic plans and hampering both students who do not go to college and those who start college but do not finish. Employers say they care about academic skills, but then do not consider grades when deciding whom to hire. Faced with few incentives to achieve, many students lapse into precisely the kinds of habits employers deplore, doing as little as possible in high school and developing poor attitudes.

Rosenbaum contrasts the situation in the United States with that of two other industrialized nations-Japan and Germany-which have formal systems for aiding young people who are looking for employment. Virtually all Japanese high school graduates obtain work, and in Germany, eighteen-year-olds routinely hold responsible jobs. While the American system lacks such formal linkages, Rosenbaum uncovers an encouraging hidden system that helps many high school graduates find work. He shows that some American teachers, particularly vocational teachers, create informal networks with employers to guide students into the labor market. Enterprising employers have figures out how to use these networks to meet their labor needs, while students themselves can take steps to increase their ability to land desirable jobs.

Beyond College for All suggests new policies based on such practices. Rosenbaum presents a compelling case that the problems faced by American high school graduates and employers can be solved if young people, employers, and high schools build upon existing informal networks to create formal paths for students to enter the world of work.

JAMES E. ROSENBAUM is professor of sociology, education, and social policy at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University.