The following was originally published in the Press-Republican.
All across America this spring, gymnasiums will be filled with joyful applause as graduates cross stages, shake hands and hold up diplomas for proud families to see. Speakers will deliver messages of perseverance and promise, as schools proudly tout graduation rates and college acceptances as evidence of success.
Yet as the celebrations die down, a darker question remains: Where are these graduates to go once they have exited the stage?
For generations, America built education around a relatively simple promise: work hard, go to college, earn a degree and success will follow. That path was never perfect, but it was clear. Students understood the rules. Families understood the destination. Schools organized themselves around preparing students for a more predictable economy and workforce.
That world no longer exists.
Consider the story of Tommy, who grew up in a small community near Lake Champlain in northern New York. Like many students, he believed college was simply a given. He enrolled at a university in Vermont, expecting happiness and success would follow. Instead, after one semester, he realized something wasn’t right. The coursework felt disconnected from any clear direction. The financial burden already felt overwhelming. Most importantly, he wasn’t sure why he was there.
So Tommy made a difficult decision. He left school.
For the next two years, he worked as a dishwasher at a local inn, wondering what his future life would hold. Fortunately, Tommy discovered a nursing program at a nearby community college that felt purposeful rather than abstract. Two years later, Tommy graduated with honors and is now flourishing with a rewarding career in healthcare.
Tommy’s experience is far from unique. Nationally, roughly four in ten students who begin college have still not earned a degree six years later, often leaving with debt, but without credentials or even a plan.
Beyond that, graduates this spring are entering a landscape increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence and automation. Costs continue to rise, and the future is unknowable. Some jobs will no longer exist four years from now, while others that will exist have yet to even be dreamed of. Students are being asked to make life-shaping decisions before they have meaningful exposure to the world they are preparing to enter, or guidance in navigating their career paths.
Nor is a diploma any guarantee of preparedness to meet the rapidly changing world they are about to enter. A fluency in coursework today means little without soft skills related to communication, collaboration or the ability to use failure as a stepping stone instead of a mill stone.
Employers increasingly echo the same message: academic knowledge alone is no longer enough. Our research shows that companies across industries are placing as much emphasis on initiative and adaptability as they do technical expertise. We call these the Essential Skills, the competencies most sought after by employers. The future belongs not simply to students who know the answers, but to those who know how to keep learning when the answers change.
Yet many students are still making critical decisions in the dark — and they cannot pursue futures they cannot see.
Young people growing up without access to professional networks often have limited exposure to the range of careers available to them. Many choose majors or career paths based on assumptions rather than firsthand experience. Others simply follow the default path because no one has helped them explore alternatives.
This is why exposure matters, and it is central to our work.
When students visit workplaces, connect with mentors, hear from professionals, participate in internships, or engage in real-world projects, they begin to imagine possibilities they had never considered before. A single conversation can widen a student’s sense of what is possible.
Academic learning remains critical, of course, but schools must also intentionally teach students how to navigate complexity. They must create opportunities for mentorships with seasoned professionals who know the ropes. They must be exposed to the wonderfully broad pool of careers, one of which is bound to dovetail with the student’s interests. Like Tommy, they must learn to lean into failure, and come out the better for it.
Most importantly, we must rethink how we define success.
Success is not won simply by collecting credits, passing tests or increasing graduation statistics. Instead, the true readiness that leads to success will be visible in students who can adapt to change, recover from setbacks, ask thoughtful questions, collaborate with others and move toward the future with confidence and direction.
At a moment when millions of students are crossing graduation stages, America faces a choice. We can continue building systems designed merely to produce graduates — or we can build systems that teach young people how to navigate an uncertain world with confidence, purpose, and hope.
Ray McNulty and Rick Dalton are leaders of Brilliant Pathways, a nonprofit organization dedicated to education and student success, and authors of the upcoming book America’s Next Dream, available online and in bookstores in early July.