Alternatives to College
AmeriCorps - Volunteer in your community to help with outreach, community development, or the environment, while earning money towards your college education.
City Year - Volunteer in an urban school to help combat dropout rates and improve student success.
Leap Now - This program offers alternative years of accredited college education with international travel and study, or just a gap year between high school and college.
Outward Bound - Takes people of all ages (and has a special program for struggling or at-risk youth) on wilderness adventures that build confidence, skills, and positive relationships.
Student Conservation Association - SCA provides college and high school-aged members with hands-on conservation service opportunities in virtually every field imaginable, from tracking grizzlies through the Tetons to restoring desert ecosystems and teaching environmental education at Washington, D.C.’s Urban Tree House.
Volunteers for Peace - Become a volunteer and work internationally to help overcome the need, violence, and environmental challenges facing our planet.
Where are you Headed - Get advice on whether or not to go to college, where to go to college, whether to take a gap year or get an internship or volunteer position instead.
World Volunteer Web - Find an expansive list of volunteer opportunities throughout the world.
Youth for Understanding USA - Provides opportunities for high school students to study abroad for a year, semester, or summer.
Jobs and Career Development
Career Information for Kids - Provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Provides information on different occupations including median salary and necessary level of education.
Career Key - Help on choosing a college major or career.
Mapping Your Future: Explore Careers - Learn more about choosing a career and the high school and college courses that you should take to pursue that.
Student Jobs - Database of federal jobs.
Teens4Hire - Get help finding a full or part-time job, internship, work-based learning experience or volunteer opportunity.
Youth Rules! - From the U.S. Department of Labor.