How Can Research Inform Policy?
By John Sludden
December 2025
In the last two decades, New York City leaders have amplified attention and investments in Career-Connected Learning (CCL) in high school. CCL is an umbrella term incorporating a broad spectrum of preparation for college and careers, including formal career and technical education (CTE) programs and newer initiatives like FutureReadyNYC and Career Readiness and Modern Youth Apprenticeships. CCL is designed to increase students’ awareness and readiness for an array of potential career paths and next steps after high school, ranging from immediate entry into the labor market or a short-term training program, to enrollment in a two- or four-year college, or even a combination of options. In this article, we provide an overview of research on CCL, recent policy shifts in New York City, and recommendations for the new Mayoral administration about how to continue to strengthen one of the most ambitious suites of CCL programming anywhere in the country.
Why Focus on Career-Connected Learning?
With wages for young adults stagnant across the country, policymakers have embraced CCL as a way to better prepare students for the future and improve access to quality, family-sustaining jobs. By connecting high school experiences with specific career pathways, CCL aims to build knowledge and skills that will help students make a successful transition to postsecondary education and/or work in high-demand sectors of the economy. Proponents also view the approach as one way to help level the playing field for economically disadvantaged students, who often lack the social networks wealthier students tap to guide them through an increasingly complex postsecondary landscape.
Causal research[1] Endnote details suggests that CCL is a promising strategy. CTE participation has been linked to wage gains and stronger education outcomes, including high school graduation, college enrollment, and college degree attainment. Below, we provide a brief overview of key findings in each area.
Wage Gains
While research in this area is still developing, a number of studies have found that CTE has positive effects on employment and earnings:
- Researchers identified a 32 percent quarterly earnings increase for male students who attended one of Connecticut’s technical high schools.
- Another study, of Massachusetts’ CTE system, found that by age 25, students who took multiple years of CTE in high school but did not attend college earned $6,000 more per year than non-college-going peers who did not take CTE; this study showed strongest earnings increases for students in Construction, Transportation, Manufacturing & Technology, and Health industries.
- A long-term study of nine Career Academies in the 1990s and early 2000s found participation produced an 11 percent increase in yearly earnings.
Education Outcomes
CTE has been shown to increase academic engagement, achievement, and completion:
- A study of a North Carolina Career Academy found enrollment increased high school graduation by 8 percentage points. A separate study from Massachusetts showed concentrated CTE coursetaking (i.e., two or more courses in a specific content area) increased both high school graduation and two-year college enrollment and completion.
- In NYC, the Research Alliance and our partners found marked variation in graduation rates and two- and four-year college enrollment and persistence across CTE contexts, allowing us to locate sources driving positive impacts.
- Specifically, smaller, less selective high schools focusing on careers requiring a bachelor’s degree or more produced increases in on-time Regents diploma receipt and four-year college enrollment. These newer, smaller high schools were also the most cost-effective.
- MDRC’s study of NYC’s seven P-Tech schools—a grade 9-14 model providing students with a high school diploma, associate’s degree, and work experience in a six-year period—found participating students were more likely to take and pass NY State Regents exams, to take college courses, and to earn college credits in high school, compared to similar students who did not attend these schools.
- A descriptive[2] Endnote details Research Alliance study of high school advising in NYC showed that students in CTE high schools reported more career-oriented planning support than students in non-CTE settings. The additional career planning support did not appear to come at the expense of college planning support.
Despite increasing attention on equity, CCL programs are not immune to disparities by race, ethnicity, and income prevalent in the broader education system.
- CTE opportunities in high-demand, high-wage careers, particularly those that are STEM and technology-based, are disproportionately taken by students who are white and male. Meanwhile, girls have been shown to be overrepresented in CTE programs for traditionally female occupations, such as those in health services.
- Researchers have also raised questions about opportunity hoarding in sought-after CTE programs. Evidence appears to substantiate this concern. Differences across schools, or the access and opportunities some schools and districts have in relation to others, is driving this equity gap in several states.
Rapid Expansion of CCL in New York City
Support for CCL initiatives commonly crosses political divides. The last three NYC mayoral administrations have invested in CCL, extending offerings to more schools and students. In a forthcoming report, we show that this expansion has rapidly accelerated in recent years. Since 2022, NYCPS has added new CCL programming in 100 schools. About half of all City high schools now offer one or more CCL programs, up from 28 percent in 2022. NYCPS has created an Office of Student Pathways (OSP) to support the work. OSP centralizes planning, implementation, and oversight of the City’s suite of CCL initiatives around high-demand industries, access in underserved areas, and the integration and oversight of participation in core program components.
High-Demand Fields
- NYC’s CCL program growth has been driven by the expansion of the FutureReadyNYC initiative, which focuses primarily on pathways to careers in high-wage, high-demand sectors. The most common are Information Technology, Health, and Business.
Expanding Access in Underserved Boroughs
- The increase in school CCL programming has been greatest in the Bronx (183% increase), Brooklyn (60%), and Queens (44%).[3] Endnote details
Integration and Oversight of CCL Program Components
- OSP has structured its CCL program requirements around five core components: career-connected instruction, early college courses, financial literacy, personalized advising, and work-based learning. OSP staff assist schools with the identification of high-demand occupations and provide implementation and training support. They have updated their data systems to track student access, participation, and progress through each program component, and they are actively engaged with research partners to continuously strengthen NYC’s CCL offerings.
NYC’s efforts are in-step with developments at state and national levels. A number of states, including New York, have incorporated career-oriented skills such as critical thinking and communication into their new Portrait of a Graduate frameworks.
Implications and Recommendations
A recently released research brief outlined the elements of high-quality CCL, including several components at the core of NYCPS’ programming. The combination of clear performance targets for NYC’s CCL programs and the capacity to track progress across such a large and diverse system presents a tremendous opportunity to learn. It is now possible to examine—at an unprecedented specificity and scale—the factors and conditions associated with CCL access and short- and long-term outcomes.
Based on the national evidence to date and our understanding of NYC’s landscape of programs, we offer three overarching recommendations to the new Mayoral administration:
- Stay the course, learn, and adapt. Education policymakers are notorious for designing and investing in initiatives that wither under subsequent leadership. NYCPS’ focus on expanding CCL programming to underserved areas, its commitment to collecting data to assess progress, and its use of evidence to identify and implement promising practices are all encouraging. The City’s CCL initiatives need time to mature. Ongoing research will shed light on the extent to which students are benefitting from these new initiatives, the conditions that drive success, and opportunities to continue to strengthen CCL offerings. A willingness to learn and adapt will be crucial given the complexity of the work at hand and the potential for developments like the rise of AI to shift the occupational landscape.
- Maintain a focus on equity. Inequities evident in the education system persist into adulthood. CCL has the potential to fill some of the planning and preparation gaps that hinder our most disadvantaged students. Further, paid work opportunities provide youth with a small but important source of income and experience. Yet quality programs often attract those who already excel academically. NYCPS should maintain its commitment to underserved students, monitor access to CCL for students with diverse learning needs (including those in transfer high schools), and foster conditions that best support these students toward long-term success.
- Deepen and extend cross-sector linkages. Providing high school students with career experiences is a particular challenge in the U.S. Part of the reason is that the sectors involved—high schools, colleges, and employers—traditionally operate independently, each with their own incentives and demands. Working across sectors requires new commitments, partnerships and practices. We urge the incoming administration to use its authority to promote stronger alignment across youth-focused agencies, including NYCPS, the Department of Youth and Community Development, and the Department of Social Services, and to continue to draw on external expertise, such as NYC’s Work-Based Learning Coalition, to nurture and improve NYC’s numerous youth employment initiatives.