What's the point of school? Where am I going? Do I need to go to college? How much could I earn?
The Make It Movement is helping young Texans think about their values, set goals and start planning their futures, writes Jon Marcus for the Hechinger Report.
Roy Spence, the ad man who came with "Don't Mess with Texas," has launched a nonprofit aimed at showing middle and high school students their career and college choices.
"There’s an interactive tool from which users can choose what kind of workplace they prefer (indoor, outdoor, at home), their personalities (thinker, doer, creator, planner) and what they value," writes Marcus. "Various careers pop up, with the educations required to reach each one, and what they pay."
The goal was to reach 20,000 central Texas students. More than 80,000 have logged on, so far. There are plans for a national campaign.
A survey of 300 middle and high school students in Austin and central Texas found that the proportion who were very aware of how they could make at least $50,000 soon after high school rose from 23 percent before they used the website to 61 percent afterward, Make It Movement says. The proportion who were aware that there were options close to home to train for jobs doing what they wanted went from 42 percent to 93 percent.
Fewer high school graduates are enrolling in college due to rising costs and declining confidence that it will lead to a career. “We have a massive surplus of high-skill careers out there,” Spence said, “and nobody to apply for them.” That includes careers in the skilled trades.