Work-based learning shows promise, but states need better data to prove it

DATE

October 22, 2026

AUTHOR(S)

Katie Cour

SUMMARY

In Delaware, a study found that students who complete work-based learning experiences are more than twice as likely to enter jobs aligned with their high school pathway, and those pathway-aligned jobs carry a substantial wage premium. Most states cannot produce evidence like this, even as they make work-based learning a centerpiece of their career pathways strategies.

Students who gain meaningful work experience before graduation are better positioned to make informed postsecondary decisions, build professional networks, and enter the labor market with credentials employers want and need.

But ask a simple question: how many students in a state benefited from work-based learning? In most states, the honest answer is that no one knows. Many can count participation, but few can say whether experiences were sustained, high quality, aligned to a pathway, or producing better outcomes for students.

What states can see and what they cannot

The national average of high school students participating in work-based learning (WBL), to the extent one can be calculated, sits around 14%¹. But state-to-state reports on WBL participation are not comparable, so that figure is hard to interpret. Launch, a national effort working with 14 states to build high-quality college and career pathway systems, worked with Delivery Associates to put states’ numbers on common footing using the best available data. The goal was so each state can see where it stands relative to others. That work showed that publicly available data are inconsistent across states or simply unavailable.

States are required to track WBL participation through the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V), the federal career and technical education (CTE) funding statute. But they use different definitions of what counts as WBL. Some include job shadowing; others count paid placements. Some require a minimum number of hours; others do not.

States can generally see whether a student participates in WBL. What they cannot see is the quality of the experience, how long it lasted, whether it was aligned to a career pathway, or how employers were engaged. Without that more nuanced view, states cannot determine which experiences are worth replicating and scaling.

Delaware takes a deeper look at work-based learning

Since 2022, RTI International, in partnership with the Rodel Foundation of Delaware and the Delaware Department of Education, has followed three cohorts of career pathway completers at six, 18, and 24 months after graduation. The study links students' high school experiences to their later education and employment outcomes, providing a rare view of what work-based learning can produce.

Roughly half of Delaware pathway graduates completed an immersive WBL experience. Those students were more likely to enroll in postsecondary education six months after graduation (78% versus 71%). More significantly, at 18 months after graduation, WBL participants were more than twice as likely to be working in a job aligned with their high school pathway–40 to 48%, compared with 17% among nonparticipants. After adjusting for pathway field and school type, WBL participation was associated with a 13-percentage-point increase in the likelihood of pathway-aligned employment.

The economic implications are also striking. Among graduates working full time who were not enrolled in postsecondary education, those in pathway-aligned jobs reported annualized wages of approximately $63,000, compared with $44,400 for those in unrelated work: a 42% wage premium for alignment.

The study also surfaced a gap that should concern every state investing in CTE and career pathways. WBL participation at Delaware's career and technical schools was 81%; at the state's comprehensive high schools, it was 29%. Because most students taking CTE courses do so in comprehensive high schools, this suggests those schools may be significantly underserving students on WBL. Delaware can see and act on that disparity because it has built the data infrastructure to do so. Most states cannot.

Two things state leaders can do now

Delaware shows what’s possible when a state invests in tracking student outcomes in a new way and asking better questions of its own data. State education leaders and funders can take two practical steps to gain similar visibility.

First, invest in longitudinal outcome tracking for WBL. Participation counts are necessary but insufficient. Perkins V data may show how many students touched a WBL experience; it does not show whether that experience was meaningful, sustained, or connected to a career pathway. States that want actionable evidence need to follow students after graduation into postsecondary programs, employment, and, ideally, earnings records. Virginia's Longitudinal Data System, which links K-12, postsecondary, and employment records to track wage outcomes over time, shows what that infrastructure can look like.

Second, adopt consistent definitions before trying to expand. When states define WBL inconsistently, data reported through Perkins V and other federal channels cannot be aggregated, compared, or used to identify what is working. The National WBL Alignment Project is developing a national taxonomy to help address this challenge. Tennessee's approach is also instructive: a statutory definition and codified course structure have supported six consecutive years of WBL participation growth, though data collection remains inconsistent across districts.

Neither move requires a new program. Both require a commitment to understanding what existing investments are producing. The question for state leaders is not simply whether work-based learning works. It is whether their state is building the systems to find out where it works, for whom, and why.

‍End notes

¹Average of Perkins V state participation rates, 2024.

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