Youth and young adults are struggling to understand how and where to acquire the skills and credentials they need to succeed in the job market. In a 2025 poll of Gen Z students from Gallup, Walton Family Foundation, and Jobs for the Future (JFF), only about one in three respondents said they knew “a lot” or “a great deal” about working at a paid job or earning a bachelor’s degree, and fewer than one in five said the same about completing a certificate or certification, an apprenticeship, or an associate’s degree program.
States lack comprehensive career navigation systems designed to ensure that all young people have access to personalized career guidance to help them understand their interests and find education and workforce pathways that lead to quality jobs. Without state policies supporting career navigation, there is a risk that the national 9% unemployment rate for 16-to-24-year-olds could grow further and weaken talent pipelines into key industries such as health care, skilled trades, AI and cybersecurity, and manufacturing.
As the Britebound Center for Career Navigation at JFF has detailed in our review of career navigation policies in all 50 states and our state policy agenda, governors and state legislators have several opportunities to ensure that more young people have access to high-quality personalized career guidance. We began tracking state activity related to career navigation (through search terms like career navigation, advising, exploration, awareness, and counseling) and found 333 bills in 46 states in 2025 alone. Of these, 99 were passed into law in 34 states by November 2025, signaling strong bipartisan interest in this area.
In their current legislative sessions, states are continuing to propose policy solutions that would better inform young people of the priority occupations within their states and more readily connect them with the post-high-school education and training opportunities needed to access them. In a September 2025 blog on this topic, we highlighted innovative reforms that were adopted in Louisiana, Texas, California, and Georgia in 2025. In this blog, we detail four new proposals in Colorado, Idaho, Ohio, and Pennsylvania and outline how state leaders could further improve upon these efforts to advance career navigation in alignment with the center’s vision for career navigation.
Colorado: Building a More Navigable, User‑Friendly Education and Workforce System
In his 2026 state of the state address, Governor Jared Polis highlighted the challenges learners and workers face when navigating Colorado’s job training system. He noted that Colorado’s more than 110 job training programs were spread across seven departments, each of which has its own eligibility requirements and intake processes. Polis called “for a unified department to serve as a one-stop shop for Coloradans to access high-quality skills, training, apprenticeships, and education.”
This call to action builds on Colorado’s recent efforts to create dashboards tracking student success data across education and workforce systems. It also builds on Colorado’s prior efforts to align programs that integrate career-connected learning opportunities for students. In 2022, Colorado appropriated state education funds to establish a Secondary, Postsecondary, and Work-based Learning Integration Task Force to convene stakeholders from across the state and develop recommendations for simplifying and expanding access to these programs. In reaction to these recommendations, the state legislature passed a law in 2025 to house nearly a dozen postsecondary and workforce readiness programs in the state’s department of education and expand funding to localities to create and scale these programs.
Taken together, these efforts underscore a reality that many state leaders overlook: For participants, the education and job training landscape is often fragmented, confusing, difficult to navigate, and often doesn’t include easy-to-understand information across multiple student success metrics. Colorado’s latest moves can kickstart a process for state agencies to ensure that learners and workers can more easily access information about and on-ramps to education and training programs that best fit their needs.
States should look to Colorado as an example of how to approach streamlining education and job training programs so that they don’t feel overwhelming and disjointed for users. They should also conduct in-depth assessments of the career navigation services provided to all 16-to-24-year-olds, such as access to personalized career guidance or labor-market information. This would help state leaders further determine what exists, how it’s funded, and whether there are any gaps in service for specific populations.
Ohio: Pursuing Statewide Reforms to Align Career Planning and Data Systems
A bipartisan proposal in the Ohio Legislature includes several provisions that are essential to the development of an effective statewide career navigation system. It would require the state’s department of education and workforce to develop a statewide career coaching framework that would include quality indicators and updated guidelines for career coach qualifications and training. This is an important step in helping practitioners understand what quality career coaching entails and ensuring that these practices are more uniform across the state.
The proposal also seeks to expand career exploration opportunities and coaching supports for students starting in grade 6 by requiring school districts to offer a career exploration course for grades 6 through 8 that includes aptitude and career coaching assessments, hands-on learning experiences, and an overview of in-demand industries across the state and hands-on learning opportunities. School districts would also be required to help students develop an academic and career plan by the end of grade 8 and update their plans annually until high school graduation through an individual career coaching session each year that aligns with the quality framework.
The proposal would further establish a cross-agency initiative focused on linking education and workforce data systems to determine the return on investment of various programs. It also calls for the creation of tools and dashboards to make graduation and employment information more usable for school districts, practitioners, and students and their families.
To further encourage career readiness, state leaders could also review career pathway offerings for grades 9 through 12 to ensure alignment with the state’s list of occupational priorities. High-quality career pathway opportunities enable young people to access strategic dual enrollment offerings and work-based learning experiences that offer students opportunities to participate in sustained, structured learning activities in real workplace settings where they can interact with industry professionals.
Idaho: Career Planning Required to Access Funding Through the LAUNCH Initiative
In his 2026 state of the state address, Governor Brad Little highlighted the availability of funding for education and training programs for more students through the Idaho LAUNCH initiative.
Building on similar requirements under the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, Idaho LAUNCH requires participants to engage in intentional career planning before they can access financial support. The state-funded initiative provides recent high school graduates with grants up to $8,000 for postsecondary education and training opportunities (including short-term credential programs, apprenticeships, traditional degree programs, and other workforce training programs) that are connected to occupations on a list of in-demand jobs that’s approved by the Idaho Workforce Development Council. A new report on the initiative demonstrates that this approach is increasing in-state student enrollment in postsecondary institutions like community colleges and universities by 11%.
As part of the program’s design, participants must complete a career pathway plan that outlines their professional goals as a prerequisite for receiving the grant. They may develop this plan in school with a counselor or independently online through the state’s career navigation platform. This plan is then reviewed by the state’s workforce development council for completion. By pairing mandatory career planning with expanded financial support, Idaho LAUNCH ensures that career guidance is a foundational element of students’ transitions from high school to postsecondary education and the workforce. Other states seeking to do something similar could further strengthen students’ development and use of these plans by establishing statewide quality standards for career coaching or offering targeted professional development opportunities for career coaches and advisors.
Pennsylvania: Incentivizing Employer Engagement in Career Exploration and Pathways Development
In Pennsylvania, proposed bipartisan legislation whose sponsors are seeking broader support from their fellow legislators would establish a new program called CareerBound to help local workforce development boards partner with school districts, businesses, and other organizations to develop and implement school-to-work programs for middle and high school students. These programs would include expanded access to career exploration opportunities such as job shadowing activities and internships and more rigorous curricula with a focus on employability skills.
Unlike prior grant proposals in the state, this legislation would include $10 million in tax credits to give local businesses an incentive to partner with education and workforce systems to create these programs. The measure also calls for the state to give priority approval to applicants who can demonstrate an ability to leverage additional funding resources (such as federal career and technical education funding) for their CareerBound programs.
States that are interested in getting employers to the table in pathways development and exploration activities should look to Pennsylvania’s proposal for inspiration. They should also consider ways to tie such efforts to statewide academic and career advising activities to ensure that such programs are more readily integrated within the state’s education system and that students are more aware of available business- and employer-led career exploration opportunities.
Moving Forward
State proposals like those in Colorado, Idaho, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are positive steps forward in bolstering efforts to help young adults navigate and succeed in today’s job market. In this critical election year, when gubernatorial races are set to take place in 36 states, policymakers must continue to put forward and enact policies that will help the next generation of workers find and secure quality jobs. Such efforts should be sustainably funded, implemented with practitioners’ needs in mind, and connected to the state’s overall education and workforce goals.
Read the Britebound Center for Career Navigation at JFF’s analysis of career navigation policies in all 50 states to understand your state’s current progress toward adopting critical policies related to career navigation, and read our state policy agenda for a comprehensive list of policy recommendations for state leaders looking to better meet the needs of all 16-to-24-year-olds. Also visit Britebound’s CareerReady HQ Compass, an interactive map that highlights a broader range of career readiness policies—such as middle school career exploration policies—across the country and provides information about regional career navigation initiatives and lists nonprofits that are actively involved in career navigation.
