Career pathways prepare students with a broad range of academic, employability, and technical skills. Rapidly changing job markets and new technologies require individuals to have broad-based skills that transfer to a wide variety of work settings, as well as high levels of thinking and interpersonal skills.

Career pathways include instruction that supports meaningful learning. Developments in the field of cognitive science suggest learning is most effective when it takes place in a real-life context. Career pathways instruction provides important workplace context that deepens student understanding of both the academic and technical content being taught. This type of contextual instruction enriches the learning process.