Britain is having a debate about its young people that American community college leaders should follow. The question is why many young people in Britain leave school and never enter the workforce. Almost one million between the ages of 16 and 24, roughly one in eight, aren’t in education, employment or training (NEET).
America has a similar problem. RAND reports that nearly 4.2 million between the ages of 18 and 24, roughly one in seven, are not in school, training or work. The disengagement often starts after high school, when schooling ends and work hasn’t taken hold.
A recent analysis by the St. Louis Federal Reserve found that U.S. youth disconnection remained essentially unchanged through the end of 2025, even in a generally healthy labor market. That matters because it suggests the problem isn’t simply a shortage of jobs. A strong economy alone isn’t enough to reconnect young people once the bridge from school to work breaks down.
Nor has a diploma been enough. About three-quarters of these young people have a high school diploma or some college. They finished school but still fell off. That’s where community colleges fit in. They sit at the point where education is supposed to become a first step into work.
The debate’s newest entry is a paper called “The Opportunity Bargain” from Britain’s Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, founded by the former British prime minister. It argues that Britain has allowed the bridge between school and work to weaken, leaving too many young people without a clear first step into employment or training.
At the center of the paper is a simple bargain. Young people who can work, learn or train should be expected and supported to do so. In return, the country should make sure a real first opportunity is waiting.
The problem, the paper argues, is that Britain’s own policies are weakening both sides of that bargain. Government is spending more to reconnect young people even as welfare rules can make inactivity safer and labor-market policies can make young workers costlier and riskier to hire. Its larger point is that a country can’t subsidize its way out of a broken youth labor market. It has to fix the systems that are producing the problem.
The paper builds on a government review led by former cabinet minister Alan Milburn. His interim report found that the share of young people out of school and work nearly triples at age 18. His final report is expected soon.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has made the issue a centerpiece for his Labour government. In a recent speech, he promised parity between academic and technical education, pathways from age 14, and an apprenticeship offer at 18.
What’s similar, what’s different
The two countries aren’t the same. Britain has gone from around the European average on youth NEET rates to one of the worst rates in Europe. America’s rate is now back to where it stood pre-pandemic. Britain’s crisis is driven by young people leaving the labor market for health reasons and a national benefits system that makes it hard to return. America’s disconnected youth are more often caring for family, earning money informally or living in places where opportunity is thin. Britain can act through one national government. America must act through states and local school districts.
So while Britain’s remedies don’t travel easily, the diagnosis does. The Blair paper describes an opportunity equation with two sides. Young people must be willing and able to take opportunities. Employers must be willing and able to offer them.
In both countries, the institutions that sit between school and work are the ones that can serve young people and employers at the same time. For example, in America, that means community colleges, apprenticeship programs and workforce boards. In Britain, it means apprenticeship providers and further education colleges, the counterpart to community colleges.
Britain has allowed the institutions between school and work to weaken. Milburn reports that fewer young Britons now enter further education and apprenticeships, the routes most open to those at risk. The Blair paper adds that youth apprenticeship starts have fallen 40% in a decade, as the system tilted toward older workers and higher-level training.
Three findings to focus on
American research points the same way. Three findings from RAND deserve more attention than they have received in Washington and statehouses.
First, college is no guarantee. About a quarter of disconnected young people have already tried it. Leaving without a credential appears to be especially damaging for young men. A policy that counts enrollment as success misses those who start and don’t finish.
Second, access alone doesn’t solve the problem. RAND’s county mapping finds that having a college nearby lowers disconnection by only about one percentage point. Relationships matter far more. Places where people rarely form ties across class lines have much higher rates. Opportunity moves through social wealth, and public policy has paid it little notice.
Third, the official count understates the problem. Beyond the disconnected, another 3.1 million young people hold jobs that leave them below the poverty line. The St. Louis Fed finds that many of the disconnected are occupied with caregiving, housework and informal work. In rural America, about one in five young adults is disconnected. These aren’t people who lack ambition. They lack room to act on it.
Artificial intelligence raises the stakes. The Blair paper warns that AI may speed the loss of entry-level work. AI isn’t replacing work so much as reorganizing expertise. The routine tasks that once taught new hires their trade are vanishing, yet employers still want people who show up with experience. The result is an experience gap, and it falls hardest on those without family connections to fill it.
Closing that gap takes employers, and many aren’t in the game. The Blair paper notes that four in 10 British employers have no contact with any education or training provider. Small firms in both countries rarely have the staff or the money to take on a beginner. Someone has to broker the match and share the cost.
Colorado offers one model. As Work Shift reported, a $1.3 million state grant allowed Innosphere, a startup accelerator, to subsidize 158 internships at more than 25 companies, including some with only two or three employees. The public share covers the first $10 an hour, and the employer covers the rest. Kelsey Baun, who manages the program, says a critical step is training the employer, not the employee. That means persuading firms to drop degree requirements their jobs don’t need. Whether these internships turn into lasting jobs isn’t yet known. But the principle is sound. Public money lowers the risk, and the employer still has to want the worker.
In September, a commission of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 30 leaders from across sectors and ideologies, called for multiple pathways after high school and better support for the learners who walk them. That consensus is a foundation to build on. And community colleges are where much of the building will happen.
The lesson isn’t to copy Britain. It’s that two different systems have produced the same gap between finishing school and starting work, and both are trying to repair it.
Recommendations
Here are seven suggestions for community college leaders.
- Look for disconnected youth. Partner with high schools, workforce boards, and community groups to find recent graduates who haven’t enrolled or found work.
- Treat stop-outs as a warning sign. Reach out early when students stop attending, especially young men.
- Put work inside the program. Make paid work-based learning a standard part of credentials, not an extra.
- Become the apprenticeship broker for small employers. Handle the paperwork, the related instruction and the matching that small firms cannot manage alone.
- Design for constrained lives. Offer short programs, flexible schedules, and childcare and transportation support for student caregivers.
- Build relationships on purpose. Mentors, employer contacts and cohort models create the ties that predict connection.
- Keep programs current with AI. Review curricula with employers often, and teach the judgment that technology doesn’t supply.
Britain is now working to repair a bridge it let weaken. America has a bridge that runs through community colleges. It will hold only if colleges treat connection to work as part of their mission, not as an afterthought. The contexts differ. The task is the same.
