We don’t need better pathways. We need a better map.
“Where can I learn to fix boat engines?” my teenage son asked one day.
It sounded like a simple question. He wasn’t looking for a four-year degree. He plans to study marine science and wants practical mechanical skills—for the obvious reason that boats break, but also because repairing marine engines could provide income while he’s in college.
I assumed the answer would be easy to find. After all, I spend my days working with education data.
But I was wrong. That surprised me because the United States has one of the richest education and workforce ecosystems in the world. Whether someone wants a bachelor’s degree, a short-term certificate, an apprenticeship, or specialized workforce training, there are thousands of opportunities to build new skills, advance a career, or simply pursue a passion.
Yet finding those opportunities can be surprisingly difficult.
I searched college websites. Workforce training directories. Apprenticeship listings. State resources. Federal databases. I never found a marine engine maintenance program, and I live in Florida—a state surrounded by water on three sides.
If someone who works in education policy for a living struggles to answer that question, imagine the experience for a learner or parent trying to navigate the system for the first time.
The problem isn’t that opportunities don’t exist. The problem is that our information about those opportunities is fragmented. My search for the right program isn’t unusual. It’s the result of how we’ve organized education and workforce information.
Today, students must navigate separate systems for higher education, workforce training, apprenticeships, and career and technical education. More than 5,600 colleges participate in federal student aid programs. Tens of thousands of workforce training programs receive federal support. States invest heavily in career and technical education. Each system collects valuable information—but largely in isolation from the others.
For decades, we’ve treated this fragmentation as inevitable, but we know it doesn’t have to be.
The irony is that Americans continue to believe deeply in education and training. Lumina Foundation’s latest State of Higher Education study found that nearly nine in 10 adults without a degree believe at least one type of credential is valuable. Fifty-seven percent have considered enrolling in education or training during the past two years, and among those, 85 percent say they’re likely to enroll within the next five years.
So, the demand is there, but every day someone can’t find the right opportunity is another day employers struggle to fill jobs, colleges miss prospective students, and learners miss opportunities to advance their careers.
That challenge becomes even more urgent when you consider that more than 43 million Americans have attended college without earning a credential. Every year, millions of learners stop out while more than a million work to return. Helping them reconnect with learning opportunities shouldn’t require detective work.
For decades, policymakers, researchers, and education leaders have called for a more integrated view of America’s education and workforce systems. The vision has been remarkably consistent, but progress has been slow.
Working alongside Intentional Futures, we asked a different question.
Instead of imagining an entirely new federal data system, what if we simply connected the ones we already have?
The result is America’s Trusted Talent System (ATTEST): An Action Plan.
The proposal doesn’t replace existing systems. It doesn’t require new legislation. It doesn’t create a national student database or collect new student-level information.
Instead, it establishes a simple hub-and-spoke model that allows existing federal data systems—including the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), the Registered Apprenticeship Partners Information Database System (RAPIDS), and Perkins—to speak the same language while preserving their unique purposes. The Hub creates a shared inventory of providers, programs, and credentials that existing systems can reference, making it possible to understand the nation’s education and workforce investments as one connected talent ecosystem rather than four separate ones.
That may sound like a technical improvement, but it’s actually a student-centered one.
Imagine a high school student exploring career options, a veteran looking to transition into civilian work, a parent returning to school, or an employer searching for training partners. Instead of bouncing between disconnected websites and databases, they could navigate a single, coherent map of America’s learning opportunities.
Providers would also benefit. Colleges and training organizations currently report much of the same information across multiple federal systems using slightly different definitions and timelines. ATTEST reduces that duplication by allowing core information to be entered once and reused across systems.
Most importantly, policymakers could finally answer fundamental questions we struggle with today:
Where are we developing talent?
Where are the gaps?
Are public investments aligned with workforce needs?
At a time when artificial intelligence, demographic shifts, and rapid changes in the labor market are reshaping education and work, those questions matter more than ever.
I often think back to my son’s question.
Somewhere, there is probably an excellent marine maintenance program. Maybe several.
Neither of us could find one, and that shouldn’t happen in a country with as many learning opportunities as ours.
America doesn’t need fewer pathways.
It needs a better map.
And building that map is something we can begin today.