LeLaina Wakeham, 25, is six years into a fulfilling, full-time career that didn’t require a college degree.
Wakeham’s decision was partly inspired by her father’s background. He was born in Mexico, and after moving to the US when he was five, he taught himself “pretty much everything,” she said. Despite not having a high school diploma or college degree, he started multiple successful businesses that allowed him to financially support his family.
“He really wanted us to be educated. He just didn’t prioritize it coming from college,” Wakeham told Business Insider. “So he pushed us to read on our own, to figure out what we were passionate about and figure out how to learn it, whether that was college or wasn’t college, it wasn’t a big deal to him.”
During her senior year of high school, Wakeham was struggling to decide on her post-graduation route. For a class, she conducted a research project on how many people actually used the degrees they went to college for, and she found that many did not.
“I just realized I had already been wrestling with this decision, and I didn’t know what I wanted to be. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, and I didn’t want to waste a ton of money if I did go to college,” she said. “That project really helped me validate my decision of not going to college and starting a job.”
Still, she noted that her school advisors didn’t have much advice for her when she told them she was considering an alternate path. She studied on her own to get her license in mortgage lending, and she now works full time in real estate.
While college still remains the primary pathway for high school graduates and the most reliable option for career and wage growth, a growing number of young people are choosing to forego it. They say it’s difficult to find support and information about their other options.
Wakeham said she could relate — she felt she was “getting written off as somebody who wouldn’t be successful because I wasn’t going to have a college degree.”
“I was taught that the only way supposedly I’ll be able to learn is if I go to college and get a business degree to teach me what I can teach myself,” she said. “That’s crazy.”
College is the default. Gen Z needs a different conversation.
US Census Bureau data found the enrollment rate of high school graduates at 61.4% in October 2023 was slightly down from 62% in 2022. While college is still the primary route for Gen Zers, some experts said that those who want to pursue an alternative path lack the necessary guidance to set them up for success.
High schools aren’t necessarily intentionally ignoring Gen Zers who want a different path. Zach Hyrnowski, Gallup’s senior education researcher, told BI. It could ultimately come down to a lack of resources and structural limitations. There aren’t enough teachers and counselors to guide every student’s individual path, meaning that the way high schools are funded and staffed could be limiting their abilities to help students with post-graduation options as much as they might want to.
“If you’re responsible for the futures of 500 students, I understand that it’s maybe not reasonable to be able to come up with customized options for every single one of them and really be able to go in-depth,” Hyrnowski said.
He added that leaders over the years have made “a conscious policy decision” to push college. “We know the benefits that come along with that,” he said, “but I wonder whether we’ve overcorrected.”
Indeed, even as some Gen Zers don’t think college is the best path for them, recent data has shown that college continues to provide long-lasting benefits when it comes to careers and earnings.
Hrynowski said, “If you go to college, you’re more likely to be thriving in your life, you’ll evaluate your life higher. You have higher subjective well-being. The data are there to suggest that college is a good thing.”
But, he said, the reality is that there has never been a 100% college attendance rate after high school, and even so, kids who don’t want to go to college are still continuing to hear about college as the primary route post-grad. A recent report from Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation found that while 68% of Gen Z high schoolers said people have talked to them “a lot” about college, less than a quarter said people have spoken to them about other routes like jobs that don’t require degrees or starting a business.
“This was stemming from probably a well-intentioned place,” Hyrnowski said, adding, “If the students tell us that that’s not the path for them, are we meeting them where they’re at and saying, ‘Okay, if you don’t want to go to college, here are your other options?'”
Hannah Maruyama, the co-author of “The Degree Free Way,” a book that offers guidance for students who do not want to go to college, told BI that many Gen Zers simply don’t know what career options are out there beyond the most talked-about ones, like doctors, lawyers, and engineers. Maruyama said changing the conversation and helping students learn about the many jobs available that don’t require a higher education would be pivotal.
“People are much more likely to be happy with their life and content with their life, and find paths that really help them live the way they want to if the jobs that they pick actually fit how they want their day to day, week to week, life to look like,” she said.
Still, college continues to be the most talked about path post-high school. Wakeham said she hopes the conversation will shift so more Gen Zers like her could feel confident in the decision to forego higher education, and have the proper tools to commit to that decision.
“As an 18-year-old, you don’t know what makes you happy, but I would say to take the time to figure out what makes you happy and what you like, what you’re passionate about, and do it,” Wakeham said. “We have so many options available where advisors might not be giving that to you, so take it upon yourself.”
A college degree is not ‘the ultimate measure of success’
Some state lawmakers have recognized the shifting perception of higher education and have started offering more jobs that do not require college degrees. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, for example, announced he would take executive action to expand apprenticeship opportunities in his state. It could help meet future demand from employers: the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that between 2020 and 2030, 60% of new jobs in the economy won’t require college degrees.
Some high schools have shifted to place a greater emphasis on alternative routes since the pandemic. For example, a January report from the Center on Reinventing Public Education conducted 266 interviews from April 2022 to November 2023 with caregivers, educators, and administrators across six high schools in New England. It found that, among the interviews, the broad consensus was that high schools should prepare students not just for college or work but should present them with a variety of choices that will help them feel fulfilled.
Some of the schools in the study offered career-oriented courses prior to graduation, while others hosted workforce roundtables and career nights with local employers. “At one point, people defined success by college,” an assistant superintendent said in the report. “And I think that people have come to realize now that that’s not the ultimate measure of success.”
Wakeham said she has no regrets about her decision to skip college — she’s able to financially support herself and is looking forward to building her career in real estate.
“I have sales experience, I have financial literacy, and I networked so hard the first year when I was 18 and had nothing going for me,” she said. “I really had to make a name for myself if I wanted to be successful in real estate. So I did. I learned everything I possibly could to be able to have an advantage.”
Are you deciding whether college is for you? Are you a parent of a child making this decision? Share your story with this reporter at asheffey@businessinsider.com.
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