High school students have many choices about what to do after they graduate but often need support to navigate their college and career options. The authors use survey and interview data from high school principals in the American Mathematics Educator Study survey fielded in spring 2025 to provide a nationally representative portrait of how principals support college and career readiness.

How High School Principals Support College and Career Readiness

Findings from the 2025 American Mathematics Educator Study

Elaine W. Leigh, Christine Mulhern, Min Jung Kim, Jessica Randazzo, Elizabeth D. Steiner

ResearchPublished Jan 13, 2026

High school students have many choices about what to do after they graduate, but how to find the right choice for them is not always clear. In an era where many future jobs will require some form of postsecondary education or training, students need access to comprehensive college and career readiness (CCR) supports, especially in high school, to gain necessary skills and understand the pathways available to them.

The authors use survey and interview data from high school principals in the American Mathematics Educator Study survey fielded in spring 2025 to provide a nationally representative portrait of how principals how principals support college and career readiness.

Key Findings

  • Most high school principals across the United States reported that their school set goals to demonstrate students' CCR. The most-common school-level goals were for students to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) (46 percent) and for each student to have an academic or career plan (43 percent).
  • Sixty percent of high school principals reported offering a sequence of postsecondary preparation activities in 9th to 12th grade.
  • Principals with stronger sequences of CCR support activities stressed the importance of engaging staff in their school's postsecondary vision through professional development and collaborative goal-setting. Principals also emphasized the need to give upper-grade students more-frequent one-on-one advising.
  • One of principals' top strategies for supporting advising and helping students explore college and career pathways was scheduling one-on-one student advising meetings.
  • Interviewed principals said that strong district support, availability of counselors or career coordinators, and access to data helped them provide students with more-comprehensive CCR supports.

Recommendations

  • High school principals could develop clear, school-specific numeric targets for measuring CCR and plans for meeting them.
  • District leaders and high school principals could reexamine how they sequence school supports to provide a balance of CCR-related courses and activities that are available to all high schoolers.
  • Districts can support principals' CCR efforts by developing programming, providing professional learning, identifying partnerships, and hiring more staff.

Topics

Document Details

Citation

Chicago Manual of Style

Leigh, Elaine W., Christine Mulhern, Min Jung Kim, Jessica Randazzo, and Elizabeth D. Steiner, How High School Principals Support College and Career Readiness: Findings from the 2025 American Mathematics Educator Study. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2026. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA4411-2.html.
BibTeX RIS

Research conducted by

This report is based on research funded by the Gates Foundation and conducted by the Education and Employment Program of RAND Education, Employment, and Infrastructure.

This publication is part of the RAND research report series. Research reports present research findings and objective analysis that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors. All RAND research reports undergo rigorous peer review to ensure high standards for research quality and objectivity.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. All users of the publication are permitted to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and transform and build upon the material, including for any purpose (including commercial) without further permission or fees being required.

RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.