Is college for everybody? According to Chelsea Waite, a senior researcher at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, the answer is no. And more students, parents, and educators are realizing it.

Waite spent two years speaking to administrators, teachers, parents, and students at six high schools in New England to learn more about post-grad desires. The study, for the Center on Reinventing Public Education, specifically concerned New England high schools, but Waite says she’s heard from school leaders across the country that the findings resonate. “What we found is that the vision that they painted was that they want every single student in that school to have a pathway to a good life,” Waite says.

What does it mean to have a “good life” in this context? And what does a path that doesn’t include college look like? That’s what we tackle on this week’s episode of Explain It to Me, Vox’s weekly call-in show. Check out the conversation between Waite and host Jonquilyn Hill; it’s been edited for length and clarity. You can listen to Explain It to Me on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts. If you’d like to submit a question, send an email to askvox@vox.com or call 1-800-618-8545.

When I was a kid it felt like the purpose of high school was to prepare every single person to go off to a university. Has that changed now?

Let’s go back to the beginning of high school, because I think that will help us answer where we are now. When high schools first started in the US, they were not universal and they were really designed for elites: largely white, male, middle- and upper-class students who would go to high school as a way to get them to higher education in order to then go into these........

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