In 2010, Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce published a report warning that a majority of the nation’s jobs would soon require at least some post-secondary education. In Ohio, the prediction was 57 percent. Six years later, a Lumina Foundation study found that only 43 percent of working-age Ohioans had a post-secondary degree or certificate. Together, these reports pointed to a looming crisis: Unless Ohio ramped up its efforts to offer high-quality training and improve career pathways, businesses would struggle to fill job openings and the state would face cascading economic effects.

To their credit, state policymakers have implemented a plethora of policies aimed at improving the state’s career pathways. But despite these efforts, Ohio’s talent pipeline has only marginally improved. Employers struggle to find employees with the right skills, workers lack access to the training they need to fill open positions, and although high schoolers are eager to explore in-demand job pathways, they largely lack the opportunities to do so. The pandemic exacerbated these issues, but even before Covid, Ohio’s rate of educational attainment was too low to meet employer needs.

What to do? ExcelinEd and Ohio Excels have some ideas, and they offered them in a recently published brief that outlines four recommendations aimed at improving learner outcomes, addressing workforce needs, and increasing economic mobility. The recommendations build on each other, so let’...

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