The College Question Has Changed. Are You Asking the Right One?

Right now, there are conversations happening in living rooms across the country that is different than many of us thought would be happening.

Its not the conversation parents had twenty years ago, when the path was simpler: get good grades, get into a good college, get a good job. Its not even the conversation parents were having five years ago, when the question was mostly about which school and how to pay for it.

The conversation happening now is harder, more specific, and in many ways, more honest.

Families are not just asking whether their teen will go to college. They are asking what a specific path will actually produce, what the backup plan is if it doesn't and whether the debt is worth it. Does this degree lead to a job? Will this job still exist?

That shift — from "where are you going to college" to "what is this actually going to do for you" — is one of the most significant changes I have seen in the families I work with. And the data tells us exactly why it is happening.

What the labor market is actually telling us.

Here is something that might surprise you, given how much anxiety there is right now about AI and job security: the United States is heading into a labor shortage.

Not a surplus. A shortage.

According to Steven Ruggles, a professor of history and population studies at the University of Minnesota and creator of the world's largest population database, demand for young workers is set to "explode" over the next ten to fifteen years. A massive wave of baby boomer retirements — an average of 10,000 boomers per day turned 65 from 2011 through 2029, with a record 4.18 million Americans turning 65 in 2025 alone — is colliding with smaller cohorts of young people entering the workforce. The result, according to Ruggles' analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data, will be an unprecedented situation: for the first time in U.S. economic history, more workers will leave the workforce than enter it.

"For the few people entering the labor force, there is going to be an outstanding economic opportunity. They are going to do very well." Ruggles told CBS News.

Read that again. The teens sitting in your home right now are not walking into a dead labor market. They are walking into one that is about to be desperate for them. The question is not whether there will be opportunity, it's whether your teen will be prepared to step into it.

And that is where the real conversation starts.

The new college calculus.

I was recently featured in the Orlando Business Journal alongside other business leaders weighing in on how economic conditions are reshaping the decisions families make around college and career. Here is what I said, and I stand by every word of it:

"The college decision has become an economic decision, full stop. In the first half of this year, the families I work with were not asking whether their child would go to college. They were asking what a specific path would actually produce and what the backup plan is if it does not. The two things driving this risk calculation are the cost of debt and the state of the entry-level job market. Parents watched a generation borrow heavily for degrees that did not pay off, and now they are watching AI reshape entry-level work while new graduates struggle to land a first job. They are de-risking. They want real work experience built into the path — not promised after graduation — and as financing gets tighter, I expect more of them to move toward community college, shorter credentials and options that keep debt low."

— Jessica Villegas, CEO and Founder, Hi-Lite Youth Programs, Orlando Business Journal, 2026

This is the reality on the ground. And it is not pessimistic. It is actually clarifying — because families who ask the right questions now will make far better decisions than those who default to the path that used to work.

The question is not college or no college. It is intentional or not.

Let me be direct about something, because I think the college conversation has become unnecessarily polarized.

College is not the enemy. A degree is not a mistake. For the right teen, in the right program, with a clear sense of what they are building toward, a college education remains one of the most powerful investments a family can make. But college without intention? That is where the trouble lives.

The teen who enrolls because it is the expected next step — without clarity on who they are, what they value, what kind of life they want to build, or what a specific degree will actually produce — that teen is the one borrowing $80,000 for a path they were never sure about, graduating into a market that is tighter than anyone told them, and ending up back home trying to figure out what went wrong.

The fix is not to skip college. The fix is to make the decision — whatever it is — with intention, information, and a real sense of self.

That is exactly the work Hi-Lite was built to do.

The same logic applies to every other path: trade school, community college, entrepreneurship, military, workforce entry. None of these are lesser options. Some of them are, right now, smarter economic decisions than a four-year degree in a field with a crowded job market. Jobs like electricians, plumbers, welders, HVAC technicians, and other skilled trades are increasingly appealing to young people — and according to researchers, these are exactly the fields where the most pronounced labor shortages are likely to appear over the next decade.

The teen who graduates from a trade program at 20 with zero debt and walks into a market that is desperate for their skills is not behind. They are ahead. What matters is not the path. It is the intentionality behind it.

The conversation your family needs to have — and how to start it.

Most teens are not equipped to have this conversation on their own. Not because they aren't intelligent, but because nobody has walked them through it. The education system sends them toward college by default. The culture tells them success looks one specific way. And the noise around AI and automation creates fear without offering direction.

What teens need is someone to help them ask — and genuinely answer — three questions.

Who am I? Not who their parents hope they will be, not who their school has decided they are based on test scores, but who they actually are. What they value. What comes naturally. What lights something up in them when they get to do it.

Where am I going? Not a vague notion of success, but a real vision. What does a fulfilling life actually look like for this specific person? What kind of work, what kind of environment, what kind of contribution?

How do I get there? Given the current labor market, the cost of education, the landscape of opportunity in the fields that align with who they are — what is the smartest, most intentional path from here to there?

These are not simple questions. They take time, honest reflection, and often a guide who is not the teen's parent — because the parent-teen dynamic, as loving as it is, rarely creates the conditions for that level of honest self-assessment.

This is exactly what our coaches do inside Get Launched.

What Get Launched actually does.

Get Launched is Hi-Lite's college and career coaching program — built specifically for teens and young adults who are navigating the question of what comes next.

It starts with the Career Scoops AI assessment — a comprehensive career intelligence tool that surfaces 8 to 10 future-forward career paths aligned with who your teen actually is, including income projections, educational requirements, and lifestyle expectations. Not the recycled list of five careers their school counselor has been recommending for a decade. The careers that are growing, that will matter in the labor market your teen is actually entering, and that align with their specific strengths and values.

From there, six private coaching sessions — virtual or in-person, scheduled around your family — guide your teen through values, vision, a plan forward, goal setting, and time management. By the end, they have not just a direction. They have a framework for making decisions about their future that belongs to them, built from the inside out.

The outcome is a teen who can answer those three questions. Who knows who they are, where they are going, and how to get there — regardless of which path they choose.

"The assessment combined with the coaching sessions really helped my son gain clarity and I watched him come alive almost instantly. His coach helped him put an action plan in place. I have never seen him so excited and focused. As a single mom, I don't know where we would have been without this."

— Mom of Teen Client, Get Launched Program

The window is right now. Later is not a strategy.

The labor market your teen is walking into over the next five to ten years is one of the most genuinely promising in modern economic history — for the teens who are ready for it.

The ones who arrive with self-awareness, a clear sense of direction, and the interpersonal and professional skills to compete for the opportunities that are coming will do extraordinarily well. The ones who arrive underprepared, unclear, and carrying the weight of debt from a path they chose by default will struggle — not because the market failed them, but because no one helped them choose intentionally.

The college question has changed. The answer your family finds has to change too.

Start that conversation now. We can help.

Jessica Villegas CEO + Founder, Hi-Lite Youth Programs 

Book a free consultation at hilitecoaching.com, call us at 321.236.2053, or reach us at success@hilitecoaching.com.