Can Career-Focused College Pathways Help Reverse Enrollment Worries?

Free or inexpensive college courses. Paid internships that align with careers. College admission that requires no application. 

These are among the strategies that K-12 school districts are increasingly implementing with institutions of higher learning to smoothen the path to college. The task has taken on increased urgency as colleges and universities confront the reality of a dwindling population of high school graduates from which to draw traditional college-age students. 

Experts say that while no single program or intervention can substantially increase college enrollment on its own, the most promising programs focus on reducing friction for students, making college more affordable, and creating stronger connections between K–12 and higher education. 

“Effective enrollment strategies do more than simply encourage people to go to college; they make it easier for students to act on an opportunity,” says Janiel Santos, assistant director of research at the Institute for Higher Education Policy, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C. that focuses on issues of college access and success. 

“That means reducing unnecessary steps and uncertainty, making college financially accessible, providing clear information and advising, and building strong partnerships so students have support at the points where they are entering or re-entering higher education,” Santos says. 

Creating Smoother Pathways 

Reducing unnecessary steps and uncertainty is the idea behind streamlined admissions, including direct and guaranteed admissions, which Santos identified as a promising approach. 

Through direct admissions, students who meet certain criteria are automatically admitted to college or university before they submit a formal application. 

The approach is yielding positive results in Riverside County, California. In 2024 the California State University System launched a pilot program in the county that guaranteed admission for high school seniors who completed required college preparatory coursework at one of 10 participating CSU campuses. The students also got fee waivers and were invited to complete a formal application. The program was implemented statewide for high schoolers on track to start college in fall of 2027. 

While preliminary data showed increases in applications, admissions, and commitments to attend among Riverside County students compared with the previous year, an independent news report indicated that the initiative may not be having the intended effect when it comes to enrollment.  

CalMatters, a nonprofit news organization, found that following the direct admission pilot in Riverside County, about 1,500 more students applied to Cal State campuses in 2025 than in 2024 but that actual enrollment increased by just 136 students. 

Santos concedes “the evidence on enrollment is more mixed.” 

Layering Support 

“That suggests that proactive admissions can help get students to the starting line, but additional supports may be needed to help them take the next step,” Santos says. 

Direct admission programs have been or are being implemented in a growing number of states, including Idaho – which in 2015 became the first state to launch a statewide program – and, more recently, Wisconsin and Hawaii.  

The approach is just one of an array of strategies that experts contacted by The EDU Ledger said could potentially mitigate the effects of the shrinking pool of students coming out of high school today due to low birth rates from just after the Great Recession. 

Davis Jenkins, senior research scholar at the Community College Research Center, or CCRC, suggested that while dual enrollment is a promising practice, it must be done in a more intentional way that aligns coursework with careers. 

“The goal shouldn’t be simply to get more high school students taking college courses,” Jenkins says. “It should be to use dual enrollment as an on-ramp to postsecondary education and training in high-opportunity fields for students who otherwise might not go to college.” 

A Case Study in Maryland 

That’s the idea behind Pathways in Technology Early College High School, or P-TECH, at Frederick Douglass High School in Prince George’s County, Maryland.  

The most recent publicly available data shows that in the 2024-2025 school year, 196 of the 207 students enrolled in P-TECH at Frederick Douglass – nearly 95% – were “on track” to earn both an associate degree and their high school diplomas within four years. 

Through a partnership with Prince George’s Community College, the school’s program offers degrees in health information management and hospitality services management.  

Given the dire enrollment outlook for colleges and universities, the high associate degree completion rate for students in P-TECH at Frederick Douglass comes as welcome news, says Stan Litow, Professor and Innovator in Residence at Duke University and architect of the P-TECH program, which began in 2011 in Brooklyn and has since been implemented at hundreds of schools nationwide and around the world. 

“I don’t want to say P-TECH is the only solution to the enrollment problem. It’s not,” Litow said in an interview with The EDU Ledger. “But making a clear pathway from high school to college to career is something that addresses the enrollment challenge because more students who are in high school are not only completing their high school degree but they’re also completing their college degree and more likely to be career ready.” 

Aligning With Career Pathways 

Jenkins said there is a need for more career-connected dual enrollment – that is, integrating college coursework into the career and technical education pathways that millions of students are already pursuing in high school. 

He cited his center’s research in Texas that found students who combined a high school career-technical education or CTE concentration with dual enrollment were more likely to enroll in college and complete a degree than students who took substantial CTE coursework without dual enrollment. 

“By age 24, students who combined CTE and dual enrollment were earning 16 percent more than otherwise similar students who concentrated in CTE but did not take dual enrollment,” Davis says.  

“There may be more than a million high school graduates each year who are already pursuing career-focused coursework but aren’t getting a head start on the postsecondary education and training they will need to advance in those fields,” Davis continues. “And yet most jobs that pay a family-supporting wage require at least some postsecondary education and training.” 

Davis said colleges and K-12 partners should build college coursework – as well as career and college exploration – into the career-connected programs that millions of high school students are already taking.  

“There are also opportunities for colleges to offer their own college-level CTE programs to high school students,” Davis says. 

Affordability and Access 

Examples of pairing a career focus with dual enrollment can be found in places such as Catoosa, Oklahoma, where high schoolers will be able to earn college credit for $20 per credit-hour in courses offered through Rogers State University. The courses are tailored to different academic and career goals. 

“Our vision is simple: create meaningful pathways, not barriers,” school officials said in a statement about the initiative. 

Santos said affordability is a key piece of the enrollment puzzle. She cited free college programs as one way to remove financial barriers and research that has found first-dollar free-college programs can have substantially greater impact on affordability and value than last-dollar programs. 

“Students may be academically prepared and admitted to college but still decide not to enroll if they don’t see a financially viable path forward,” Santos says. 

This story originally ran in The EDU Ledger's September 3rd edition. Subscribe here for full access.