The following was originally published by the Press-Republican.

By Rick Dalton and Raymond J. McNulty

We live in a moment of staggering contradiction. Artificial intelligence promises to reshape nearly every job. The cost of college has never been higher. And everywhere we go, young people question whether higher education is still worth it. Yet the reality, buried beneath the noise, is starkly different. As the Wall Street Journal recently reported, workers with college degrees now earn, on average, over 70% more than those without one, and an increasing share of new jobs require some form of postsecondary credential.

The perception that college no longer matters is powerful—but the data says otherwise.

And yet, that perception is part of a deeper challenge facing Gen Z. For today’s young people, especially those from underserved communities, finding postsecondary success is more difficult than at any point in the last 50 years. College-going rates for young men have plummeted. Many teens feel overwhelmed by a job market they don’t understand and a future they’re not sure they can influence. Mental-health concerns, from anxiety to isolation, have reached historic highs.

Between the two of us, we have spent more than 100 years helping young people navigate this complicated landscape. From admissions offices at Harvard and Middlebury to the Vermont Commissioner of Education’s office, and from national leadership roles at the International Center for Leadership in Education, the Successful Practices Network, and CFES Brilliant Pathways, we’ve worked with hundreds of schools and thousands of students. And across all that experience, one truth stands above the rest:

Hope is the difference-maker.

Hope is often misunderstood as simple optimism or positive thinking. It’s neither. According to leading researchers like C. R. Snyder, hope is a skill set, a way of thinking, that allows people, especially teenagers, to set meaningful goals, identify multiple pathways forward, and take action even when obstacles block their initial plans. When young people have hope, they engage, persist, adapt, and connect. When they lack it, they withdraw, tune out, and assume the future happens to them rather than something they can create.

The good news? Hope is teachable.

We’ve seen hope change lives.

Take Anthony, who began high school homeless and sleeping on friends’ couches. He was part of CFES Brilliant Pathways, where he learned how to set goals, map out different pathways to college, and build the agency to navigate each new barrier. He didn’t just make it through; he graduated from college and is now a high school dean, helping students facing the same kinds of obstacles he once faced.

He describes hope as “the moment I realized what I saw wasn’t all I could be.”

Over the last 35 years, CFES Brilliant Pathways has helped 110,000 students from challenging backgrounds create promising futures. These are young people who achieved degrees or workforce certificates, secured livable-wage jobs, and returned to support their families and communities. Hope was the common ingredient.

Every one of these students possessed hope, and every one of them learned how to use it.

Hope is also the missing piece in our schools.

Education is full of well-intentioned strategies that fall flat because they fail to activate the one thing students must bring to the table themselves: the belief that the future is navigable.

Here are three essential things we’ve experienced while doing this important work:

Mentoring doesn’t work without hope.
 Essential Skills don’t stick without hope.
 Pathways to college and career remain theoretical without hope.

Hope is the engine that drives these efforts.

One powerful example comes from Douglas County, Colorado, where the school district has committed to a bold vision: by 2038, every graduate will leave school with hope. That means learning to set and pursue meaningful goals, navigate alternative routes, analyze obstacles, and shift strategies when a plan hits a wall. Douglas County sees what research confirms: hope predicts academic resilience, mental well-being, and long-term success better than any single demographic factor.

How do we instill hope in Gen Z?

We recommend three steps:

  1. Teach goal setting as a daily practice, not a one-time exercise.
     Students must articulate goals that matter to them and know how to measure progress.
  2. Normalize multiple pathways.
     When one route closes, students need the confidence and skill to identify another. Plans must include “Plan B, C, and D” because that’s how life works.
  3. Build agency through mentorship and early wins.
     Young people gain hope by acting and seeing that their actions matter. Every school should structure opportunities for small successes that accumulate into momentum.

Hope is not a soft concept. It is the strongest predictor of student engagement and one of the clearest drivers of academic and career success. It is a strategic tool for systems seeking transformation. And it is the antidote to the disengagement and despair we see in far too many of our youth.

Gen Z does not lack potential. They are lacking hope.

Suppose we commit to building it, deliberately, systematically, and at scale. In that case, we will unlock a generation’s capacity to thrive in a world that needs their creativity, resilience, and leadership more than ever.

Rick Dalton is the founder and president of CFES Brilliant Pathways, a national nonprofit that helps students become college and career ready. Ray McNulty is Thought Leader and Strategic Advisor for CFES Brilliant Pathways.