Why We're Creating Education and Career Pathways for Students in Grades 11–14

How our pilot pathway programs are redesigning the handoff between high school, college, and career 

A few months ago, I was talking to one of our college students, and her story highlighted so clearly how our education and workforce systems aren’t designed to help young people smoothly transition from high school to college to a good job. And why we need to build a new model.  

This student shared that when she was a high school student at Making Waves Academy, she was really excited about nursing. In her senior year, she enrolled in a nursing program at a four-year college in California. A year into her program, she realized: “This isn’t what I thought it would be. This isn’t for me.” She moved back home, transferred to a local community college, and started over. 

Fortunately, this student figured it out and is now transferring back into a four-year college, this time with a clearer sense of purpose. But she said something that stuck with me: “I wish I had explored careers and internships in high school. Maybe I could have figured this out before college.” 

This student’s experience is not unusual. As someone said to me earlier this year, “College is a really expensive career exploration strategy.”  

We need to stop treating the handoff between high school, college, and career as a baton pass. It isn’t working for students, and it isn’t working for colleges and employers. Instead, we need to blur the lines between K-12, higher ed, and career. That means:  

• integrating career-connected learning into high school and college,  
• accelerating students’ path to college degrees and credentials through early college credit 
• creating supportive pathways into high-wage jobs. 

Why early work experience matters for students and employers 

At Making Waves, we’re proud of our track record helping students succeed on their path to and through college, with most students earning college degrees without debt. But the world has changed. A college degree still matters, but in today’s labor market, the strongest bet for economic mobility is college combined with work experience.  

Yet too many young people graduate without that combination. The unemployment rate for college graduates compared to the overall unemployment rate is the worst it’s been in over 30 years. For college graduates from low-income backgrounds, nearly half are underemployed in their first job, and two-thirds are still underemployed five years later.

With support from Education Strategy Group, we’ve been analyzing the Bay Area landscape and labor market. Their insights confirm what we’re hearing from students and employers: it’s challenging for schools and employers to build career pathways on their own. When done well, a regional intermediary plays the coordinating role. We see a gap in the Bay Area for an organization that can both deliver direct services and connect the dots between schools, colleges, and employers.  

We see an opportunity for Making Waves Education Foundation to play that role, designing clear and coherent pathways that strengthen college persistence, build work experience and skills employers demand, and lead to strong first jobs and economic mobility.    

Our emerging model is focusing on the critical transition years between high school, college, and career 

After a year of listening, piloting, and learning from others, we’ve narrowed in on an intermediary program model we’re excited to explore this year: career pathway programs for students in grades 11-14. 

We’ve been inspired by The Big Blur, Jobs for the Future’s call to rethink the lines between high school, college, and career. We’ve also studied innovative models like Cherry Creek Innovation Campus in Colorado, Launchpad in Philadelphia, and Da Vinci Schools in Los Angeles which show that career-connected learning can be directly built into education.  

We’re testing what it would look like to design and run pathways in fields like healthcare, STEM, finance, education, and business in partnership with employers, colleges, and high schools. The focus is on grades 11–14 – the last two years of high school and the first two years after high school graduation – to blur the lines between high school, college, and career. 

Instead of fragmented systems, students move through one connected pathway 

The model we’re exploring links grades 11 through 14 into a coherent sequence of exploration, experience, and preparation to launch. 

• In 11th grade, students explore industries and earn early college credit.  
• In 12th grade, they build on this through paid work and stackable credentials.  
• In 13th and 14th grades, they pursue a degree or credential while gaining structured work experience that leads directly into high-wage roles or further college study. 

The pathway takes them from career exploration to higher education enrollment, robust work experience, and direct job placement. Ultimately, our goal is that students graduate with degrees, skills, and experience that set them up for stronger persistence in college and strong first jobs – a living wage, growth potential, and upward mobility. 

What we’re learning: there is no substitute for real-world experiences 

Last spring, we launched our first pilot, Hands-On Health, in partnership with Kaiser Permanente School of Allied Health Sciences. Students from high schools across Contra Costa County participated in three days of immersive, paid learning that included medical simulations, employer engagement, and career planning. 

The results were inspiring.  

• 100% of participants strengthened skills like communication and collaboration.  
• 78% reported that they felt more prepared to make postsecondary and career decisions.  
• And just last week I learned that one of our participants reached out to his Kaiser mentor and asked if the mentor would write one of his letters of recommendation for college – brokering social capital connections in action! 

Our biggest takeaway is that there is no substitute for authentic, real-world experiences. Students are hungry for them. We also learned that we can successfully recruit across the county, partner with employers, and deliver programming that connects directly to high-demand careers. This is exactly the role pathway intermediaries need to play.  

What comes next: pilots underway with new investment 

This year, we’re launching new pilots that test different parts of the pathway. Thanks to support from the IGNITE Fund of the Roberts Foundation, the Payette River Foundation, and the Contra Costa Workforce Development Board, we’re expanding our work with both early on-ramps and deeper career-connected experiences: 

• Career Spark (Grades 9–10): A free, three-day experience co-designed with Earn & Learn and hosted at Community Youth Center. Students explore careers, practice professional skills, and connect with employers. They leave with greater confidence and clarity about high-wage, high-demand options. 
• Pathways to Health (Grades 11–12): A four-day paid fellowship with Kaiser Permanente and Community Youth Center. Juniors and seniors in high school gain exposure to nuclear medicine and other in-demand healthcare fields through simulations, professional panels, and problem-solving challenges. As they do this, they practice durable skills and build their social capital networks, all while earning a $400 stipend. 
• HealthX Fellowship (Grades 11–12): A six-month, paid program with Kaiser Permanente and Contra Costa College. Students discover high-demand, high-wage healthcare careers, from radiologic technologists to nurses. They participate in site visits, hands-on simulations, and team-based projects. They’re mentored by healthcare professionals throughout the fellowship, practice durable skills, earn a healthcare certification, and are paid a $1,000 stipend. 

These pilots build the foundation of our 11–14 model. They’re helping us answer key questions:  

• How do we best combine early college credit, work-based learning, degrees, and credentials to accelerate pathways to high-wage jobs?  
• What kind of navigational support is needed to ensure access and equity, from stipends and transportation to removing GPA barriers?  
• Which industry pathways should we build to best integrate labor market demand, high wages, and student interest? 

The lessons we are learning are shaping a model that can scale across sectors and give students both the education and work experience they need to thrive, no matter what career path they ultimately choose.  

An invitation 

We will learn a lot this year. As we test new pilots and refine our ideas, our focus is on building a model that helps young people in the Bay Area’s Contra Costa County move more smoothly from high school to college and into good jobs. 

We can’t do this work alone. 

• High schools can partner with us on student recruitment.  
• Colleges can partner with us on early college credit and credential-bearing experiences. 
• Employers can open their doors for work-based learning.  
• Funders can help us launch and scale what works. 

 Join us to build stronger pathways to opportunity.