Career Literacy Strengthens Student Success

Students who understand how their skills, interests and education connect to a range of career pathways may be better positioned to navigate a rapidly changing job market, according to new research from the DeBruce Foundation. 

The report from the nonprofit, which focuses on expanding pathways to economic growth and opportunity, found that people with higher degrees of career literacy—the ability to understand, plan and navigate career pathways—conduct broader job searches, are more open to changing careers over time and experience greater employment security. Those skills, researchers argue, will become increasingly important as artificial intelligence continues to reshape the labor market.

According to the findings, individuals with high career literacy considered about six potential jobs during a job search, compared to roughly two among those with low career literacy. The research also found that people with both strong career literacy and robust professional networks explored 22 percent more career options outside their current path than their peers and earned an average of $40,000 more annually.

Leigh Anne Taylor Knight, executive director and chief operating officer of the DeBruce Foundation, said career literacy—in contrast to career readiness, which focuses on developing academic, technical and employability skills needed to enter the workforce—helps students understand their strengths, explore different career pathways and make informed career decisions.

“Career literacy really focuses on, ‘Hey, what do you really like to do? What do you do well?’ in order to open the student up to consider multiple careers,” Taylor Knight said. “That’s just imperative in today’s economy, and we’re only seeing AI accelerating that.”

The findings are based on nine groups of national survey data collected between spring 2021 and spring 2025 from roughly 36,000 adults ages 18 to 64.

Taylor Knight said introducing students to career literacy early in their college experience helps them better understand the broad range of career opportunities available to them and allows them to connect their coursework to future careers.

“Exposing them to new industries and different kinds of professions, as well as helping them see the relevance of what they’re doing in their coursework, just turns them on to be able to attain those degrees,” she said. “When you see that there’s a wide opportunity of ways that I can use this degree, you’re more likely to be excited about completing that degree.”

Building career literacy: The report found that career literacy develops over time, reinforcing the idea that introducing students to career exploration and planning earlier can improve long-term employment and economic outcomes.

Taylor Knight said colleges can strengthen students’ career literacy by pairing classroom instruction with experiential opportunities that allow them to apply what they’re learning while exploring potential career paths.

“When they get to do those kinds of things, they begin to understand and build and communicate their skills and their interests in a real-world situation,” Taylor Knight said. “That’s a part of career literacy; [it] is that I know what those skills are, and that I can communicate those skills and that I have confidence in order to look at different options out in the economy.”

While early career exploration can benefit all students, the report found that access to career literacy is not evenly distributed across demographic groups—men demonstrated persistently higher career literacy than women after age 25, according to the report.

White respondents also demonstrated higher career literacy than Black and Hispanic respondents during the early- and midcareer years, while individuals with a college education showed substantially higher career literacy across all ages.

The findings, Taylor Knight said, highlight the role colleges can play in expanding access to career exploration and guidance so students are better equipped to navigate an evolving workforce. She pointed to summer bridge programs—which help students transition to college through academic preparation, mentoring and other support services—as one way institutions can introduce career literacy early.

“When individuals come in and have an opportunity to learn about their strengths and their interests, they have an opportunity to draw their future with agility,” Taylor Knight said. “It begins to instill confidence in them and a belief that they can actually accomplish that.”

Preparing future graduates: Taylor Knight said that as AI continues to reshape the workforce, institutions need to expand the experiential learning opportunities they offer so students can prepare for multiple career pathways.

To meet that challenge, Taylor Knight said, institutions should embed career literacy throughout the student experience rather than limiting it to career services or students’ final years on campus.

“There’s a higher standard to which higher ed is being called,” Taylor Knight said. “The return on investment is not just that first job out of college, but it’s the ability to actually consider more career pathways across their lifespan and to be more resilient because they understand what they do well and what they like to do.”

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