About the Broken Marketplace Study

The Schultz Family Foundation partnered with HarrisX to conduct a sweeping, national survey to better understand the barriers, needs, and opportunities facing young people in the United States aged 16 to 24 as they navigate from high school to careers, recognizing that this journey is often critical in shaping a person’s economic mobility.

Many young Americans seek professional success but face fractured pathways from high school to the job market. The people meant to support and guide them — parents, teachers, counselors, and employers — often have misaligned expectations and provide outdated guidance. 

That is the reality revealed in The Broken Marketplace: America’s School-to-Work Crisis, a national research effort commissioned by the Schultz Family Foundation and conducted by research consultancy HarrisX to understand why so many young adults feel stalled at the starting line and what it will take to help them move forward.

The research sheds new light on how the system designed to support young adults on the journey from school to work is fundamentally out of sync with the rapidly shifting modern economy. And it is poised to get worse as advances in artificial intelligence further impact the labor market.

Employers want experience, but few provide it. Parents offer advice shaped by their own past, even as the world their children face has changed dramatically.  Navigators — educators, guidance counselors, community leaders, and career and workforce specialists — often lack the time or tools to help students plan for what comes next. Each group assumes someone else is filling the gap. In reality, many young people are left to figure it out alone.

The result is a Broken Marketplace where more than four in 10 young people say both the education system and the employment resources available to them are broken and do not provide effective guidance. Many are also anxious about the future, with nearly half feeling unprepared — or unsure of their readiness — for the jobs ahead, especially as artificial intelligence reshapes the market.

This misaligned system is stalling the futures of tens of millions of young Americans.

This research was shaped by listening directly to young people across the country—their stories, their struggles, and their hopes for the future. What we heard was clear: young adults seek personal and professional success, but the systems meant to support them often are failing them.

The stakes are real. This is about more than career trajectories. It is about whether young people can afford to move out, find stability, and build a life on their own terms. It is about confidence, purpose, and belonging. And it is about the strength of the U.S. economy, which cannot afford to leave millions of young people stalled at the starting line.

‍The findings of this study are both a diagnosis and a call to action:

‍Employers can build real pathways by investing in training, creating accessible entry points, and clearly signaling what skills and experiences matter.

‍Navigators can be supported to help students navigate, not just graduate, and to better connect what happens in school with what comes next.

‍Parents can guide their children more effectively by using up-to-date tools and understanding the realities of today’s career landscape.

Addressing this crisis requires a fundamental realignment across every part of the Broken Marketplace. This research serves as a call to action for everyone to build a better marketplace, particularly for the economy ahead. A system where every young person has a real chance to chart a path toward opportunity and success.

The Broken Marketplace offers essential insights for those ready to build something better.