[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 178 (Tuesday, December 3, 2024)]
[House]
[Page H6288]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 SETTING STUDENTS UP FOR CAREER SUCCESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 9, 2023, the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, for decades, Americans have been sold the line 
that a college degree is a prerequisite to success and economic 
mobility. This can be discouraging to the vast majority of the American 
workforce without a baccalaureate degree.
  However, study after study shows that this narrative no longer holds 
true. In the face of rising college costs, a new model for stability 
and success is available. It celebrates hands-on job experience.
  A new study of 65 million American wage earners by The Burning Glass 
Institute, an independent nonprofit research center, found that by the 
age of 40, one in five workers with only a high school diploma earned 
above the median income for college graduates--$70,000--without the 
drag-down effect of a college degree.
  Even more impressive is the nonprofit's finding that 5 percent of 
them, a cool 2 million Americans, earned six-figure salaries.
  How did they get started on these successful careers?
  One factor is what Burning Glass calls launchpad jobs. These jobs 
give high school students and graduates real-world, wage-earning 
experience that develop skills they can build careers upon. The jobs 
are widely varied: telemarketer, computer support specialist, software 
developer, flight attendant, commercial diver, and quarry rock 
splitter. They all offer this new route to success.
  A recent New York Times article profiled two young people whose 
success is indicative of the value of these launchpad jobs.
  One young man worked a summer internship at a local bank the summer 
after his high school graduation. This earned him a place as a full-
time bank teller and soon a loan officer. Now, at the age of 21, he 
earns $50,000 a year--with no college debt, mind you.
  These launchpad jobs are not antithetical to college, either. That 
21-year-old bank teller is currently getting his bachelor of arts while 
working as a loan officer. His job is helping him build the life he 
wants.
  One huge problem with college is that it pushes young people to study 
and choose a major when they have no real-world experience that would 
guide their choice of what and how to study. These launchpad jobs can 
address this obstacle.
  A young woman who participated in a career learning program in her 
junior year in high school received experience that qualified her for a 
job at a local pharmacy during her senior year. When she graduated high 
school, she had a high-earning job that she used to put herself through 
undergraduate school and beyond, ultimately earning a doctorate in a 
field she knew from firsthand experience she loved and was good at.
  At 28 years old, she now earns $100,000 a year as a pharmacy 
operations manager at a teaching hospital. She credits her success to 
so-called launchpad programs. She said: I never would have known of the 
opportunity without the work-study program.
  If we want to strengthen the American workforce and help young wage 
earners achieve economic stability and success, we need to stop 
shunting them into an education model that saddles them with debt and 
delays their real-world experience. Instead, we need to empower 
programs that offer high school students experiences that help develop 
real skills and launch young Americans into successful careers.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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