In 2022, California established the Golden State Pathways Program (GSPP), a $500 million investment to improve career pathways at California high schools. Last week, Valerie Lundy-Wagner, research fellow and associate director of the PPIC Higher Education Center, presented key findings from a new report examining district plans to implement GSPP. Then she answered audience questions with coauthor and center director Olga Rodriguez.
GSPP represents “the most explicit integration of college and career readiness to date,” said Lundy-Wagner. Historically, high school students who pursue career pathways or career technical education have been unable to access college preparatory curriculum—limiting their options after graduation. GSPP aims to ensure that career pathways also help prepare students for college.
The report estimates that over 500,000 students across the state will participate in roughly 1,300 GSPP-supported career pathways in diverse industry sectors, with health science being the most common. GSPP implementation grantees also serve more diverse students than the statewide average, including higher proportions of low-income and Latino students.
Grantees anticipate certain challenges with implementation. In interviews with the researchers, some grantees noted that since programs to improve college and career readiness have been separate in the past, getting buy-in to integrate these efforts can be challenging, said Lundy-Wagner. GSPP also requires that funded pathways include work-based learning, but support for operating these programs is difficult, especially in rural areas.
Nevertheless, Rodriguez noted that GSPP offers a major opportunity “to transform college access and success” by increasing the number of students who are prepared for college, especially among underrepresented student groups. Regardless of if students go to a two-year college or a four-year college, she said that those who complete college-prep requirements are more on track to complete financial aid paperwork and succeed in college.
Virtually all grantees named dual enrollment—in which high school students take college courses for credit—as a part of their GSPP efforts. Currently, under a third of high school students graduate with dual enrollment credits. Rodriguez explained that encouraging high school students to take gateway math and English courses through dual enrollment could help improve college outcomes.
Moving forward, future research examining grantees’ plans to sustain their GSPP-supported career pathways and studying whether GSPP is improving key educational and labor market indicators would help identify policy gaps and opportunities in aligning college and career readiness.
