When it comes to preparing students for life outside of high school, Joni Holifield holds a decidedly unique idea about what students need for success. 

It’s a mistake to overlook vital skills like financial literacy, marketing, and technology in high school education, says Holifield, the founder and executive director of HeartSmiles, a Baltimore nonprofit that trains teens in entrepreneurship and business leadership. Holifield says classes in leadership and entrepreneurship belong in public schools.

Systemic barriers limit access to educational programs that enhance students’ futures outside of curricula, and while internships exist, access to them is often limited, Holifield said. With heavy course loads, students sometimes don’t even have the time to participate in internships. 

“And we wonder why so many of us, especially young Black kids from underprivileged communities, either don’t make it into a professional space or are limited to just minimum wage type jobs because they’ve been trained in a minimum wage type way,” Holifield said.

The emphasis in most high school curricula remains on assimilation, she said, which stifles the aspirations of those who dare to dream beyond the confines of societal expectations. “It’s all about training you up to basically be just a number,” Holifield said.

Students at Bard High School Early College DC share Holifield’s view. They are even calling for classes on money management, tax preparation, business startups, and career planning, along with more discussions on alternatives to college. They believe these additions are crucial for better preparing them for “the real world” after graduation.

As the workforce becomes more competitive, Bard DC students say they’re receiving inadequate preparation for a future beyond the classroom. 

“I think the school is missing a curriculum that actually interests students,” said Akrya Wiley, a 12th-grade Bard student. 

Bard DC is part of a national multi-campus network of nine public high schools in New York, New Jersey, Ohio, and Tennessee that aim to address the “unequal education on-ramp,” particularly for low-income and traditionally under-represented students. The schools provide tuition-free early college and a chance to earn an associate degree in addition to a high school diploma. Bard Early College is affiliated with Bard College in Annandale-On-Hudson, New York. 

Students across the country are increasingly advocating for more practical, real-world preparation. This trend is evident in the growing enrollment in vocational and trade school programs, where students perceive better readiness and opportunities. In Tennessee, for example, trade programs are expanding as higher education enrollment declines. 

In a survey conducted by the Educational Credit Management Corporation, 63 percent of teens said they are considering opportunities beyond a traditional four-year degree. Only 13 percent said they feel prepared to choose their path after high school. In response to the shift, many schools and districts nationwide are increasing funding dedicated to transforming education. California, for example, has answered this call with an executive order to expand access to “21st-century skills.”

In Washington, D.C., Bloomberg Philanthropies recently announced a $9.5 million grant to expand its Advanced Technical Center, which trains students to become certified nursing assistants or patient care technicians. While districts across the country are recognizing the shift towards vocational programs and other forms of education, the need for financial support, such as Bloomberg’s grant, is becoming increasingly apparent. Though D.C. offers courses at 18 vocational institutions, students continue to advocate for more tailored support and teaching methods.

While Bard DC is a prep school, students say the curriculum doesn’t include some of the future-focused training they would like to access more. Their course wish list includes money management, tax preparation, business startups, and other alternatives to college. 

“The school’s curriculum is missing courses that could help students out after they leave school,” said Monye’ Brice, who graduated from Bard DC earlier this year with an associate degree. 

Kaylah Johnson, who recently graduated from Bard, agreed: “I think the curriculums are missing more adult topics.” 

If not college, then what?

Gen Z students – born between 1997 and 2012 – feel a bachelor’s degree is more important to success than ever, but also say the cost of tuition, the fear of student debt, and feeling unprepared for college are all standing in their way, according to a recent study by the ECMC Group. Almost two-thirds of students in the study said they were open to options other than a four-year college degree, up seven percentage points from pre-COVID. 

The current model of pushing all students toward college is “broken in so many ways,” says Leslie Speidel, project director of the Harraseeket Foundation, a nonprofit that provides mentoring and career preparation help for high school students in Northern Virginia.

“They end up really stuck because they get out of school … with no real-world skills,” Speidel said. “They’re not going to college, because college is not affordable, or they don’t see [college] being in the picture.”

The college prep path, which focuses on beefing up the resumes of students to get them into college, may not meet the needs of students like 12th-grader Jordan Williams, who wants to become a media personality after graduating from Bard DC. Williams said that while managing basketball, podcasting, and school, he realized that the school’s resources for entrepreneurship education are extremely limited.

If classes were more filtered toward students’ interests and preparation for desired work life, more students would feel enthused about school, Williams says.

But, said Speidel, classes like “marketing, entrepreneurship, personal finance – those are not going to help them with their grade point average; they’re not going to help them achieve that goal of graduating and getting into a first-rate school.” 

That makes these classes less appealing for prep schools to offer, she said. 

Bard’s curriculum is designed to prepare students for college, said Tony Gallemore, an administrative officer at the school, but “I do not think students make the real-life correlation between the curriculum and how it transfers to real-life scenarios.” 

He’s not surprised students feel unprepared. 

“I do not believe any student is fully prepared for life after high school because schools have gotten away from teaching life skills needed to survive out in the real world, such as basic living skills and money management skills,” he said.

Still, Holifield said, financial literacy, marketing, and technology skills are necessary to ensure the success of students outside of school.

“Regardless of where you want to go in life, if you are able to be a strong leader first with yourself and then be able to influence other people, you will never want to be at the bottom of the barrel in any workplace,” Holifield said.

Schools should be asking students how their version of success looks, “and then allowing young people to be able to dictate what that looks like for them,” she said.

To some Bard students, success looks like owning their own business and “hustling.”

But while many students are motivated, they still need guidance, Holifield said. Students often say they don’t have the basic skills to advance in their desired careers, or that they want to become entrepreneurs, but they lack the resources to do so. 

Kaemon McNeil, a senior at Bard, echoed this belief.

“A lot of students want to build businesses but yet don’t have the foundation to do so,” McNeil said. “This foundation needs to be changed, and it is up to us to promote and use our voice as a movement to form this change and help our younger generation become more entrepreneurs.”

Holifield said if she could, she’d add courses in leadership to the public school curriculum. 

“Nobody is really stepping up to really challenge the systems and to challenge the structure,” she said. “So it really is going to be on young people who are coming up today to really put themselves in positions of power where they can try to undo and fix some of these things.”

Ste’jonn Gibson and Destiny Clay are 2024 graduates of Bard High School Early College DC, where Youthcast Media Group — a partner of Black News & Views — partners with the journalism class. Angely Peña-Agramonte is a YMG intern and student at the University of Miami studying journalism and international relations.