Where the pathway from career guidance to paid work-based learning holds, and where it breaks.
Jobin Thomas · built on the published 2025 State Opportunity Index · jobinthomas.co
What this is. A working demonstration built entirely from Strada Education Foundation's
published 2025 State Opportunity Index appendices, the public national and state tables.
It shows what public data can establish, and where it stops.
What it cannot show is the conditional question: whether a student who receives quality
coaching goes on to secure a paid experience. Coaching and work-based learning are reported in
separate appendices and never cross-tabulated, so that probability exists only in the individual-level data.
Answering it is the purpose of the proposed study, which would rebuild this tool on the microdata.
36% vs 34%
Personalized career guidance, four-year: first-generation students are at parity or slightly ahead
35% vs 46%
Paid work-based learning, four-year: an 11-point deficit for first-generation students
11% vs 21%
Paid work-based learning, two-year: first-generation students roughly half as likely
Equal guidance, unequal experience
First-generation students receive career guidance at the same rate as their peers, or slightly more. They do not convert it into paid experience at anything like the same rate.
First-generationContinuing-generation
Percent of students. Source: 2025 State Opportunity Index appendices, national results by first-generation status.
Across the states, guidance does not predict paid experience
Each point is a state. If guidance reliably produced paid opportunity, points would climb a diagonal. They do not.