Every spring, millions of 18-year-olds graduate from high school and start on one of three paths: (1) college; (2) the military; or (3) work. College is the choice encouraged most often by high-school guidance counselors, and for good reason. By 2020, two out of every three jobs will require some sort of higher education, according to the Center on Education and the Workforce, at Georgetown University. But not every high-school graduate is ready for college at 18. Getting students who start college to eventually finish is a noble goal. But people focus too much time, effort, and money on pushing students through a narrow, simplistic view of higher education--one that starts three months after high-school graduation and ends two or four years later with a degree. That vision does not reflect either the reality of today's students or the higher-level skills the economy needs in its workers to compete on the global stage. In the United States, college is considered the default maturing experience for adolescents who have no interest in joining the military. Colleges were not designed with that primary task in mind, however. Their cost has risen so fast in part because they feel pressure from parents and the government to keep adding services to help students mature. One of the best ways to improve completion rates and fill jobs is to make sure that students who go to college after high school are truly ready for it, or else channel them into alternatives that motivate them to go eventually, or give them needed skills for the workplace. One key reform would be to blend the transition between high school and college. Instead of a three-month gap, more students would ease into credit-bearing college courses in their senior year of high school. Further along, a large part of the first year of college would be mandatory work or service, through which students could learn practical skills, work alongside people of other ages and backgrounds, see the daily results of their labors, and earn some money to pay for college. Perhaps the most important change may prove the most difficult: a shift of attitude on the part of parents, guidance counselors, and higher-education officials themselves, about college being the place to go right after high school. This is not about encouraging students to skip college. This is about creating more pathways to college. Rather than view additional pathways to their institutions as new competitors, colleges should see them as ways to improve their own completion rates, expand educational opportunities to more students, and provide the American economy with the skilled work force of tomorrow.