Preparing Students for College and Careers: The Causal Role of Algebra II Matthew N. Gaertner • Jeongeun Kim • Stephen L. DesJardins • Katie Larsen McClarty Received: 10 April 2013 / Published online: 29 November 2013 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013 Abstract In educational research and policy circles, college and career readiness is generating great interest. States are adopting various policy initiatives, such as rigorous curricular requirements, to increase students’ preparedness for life after high school. Implicit in many of these initiatives is the idea that college readiness and career readiness are essentially the same thing. This assumption has persisted, largely untested. Our paper explores this assumption in greater depth. Using two national datasets and an instrumental variables approach to mitigate selection bias, we evaluated the effects of completing Algebra II in high school on subsequent college and career outcomes (i.e., persistence and graduation as well as wages and career advancement). Results suggest Algebra II matters more for college outcomes than career outcomes and more for students completing Algebra II in the early 1990s than in the mid-2000s. Study limitations are discussed along with directions for future research, such as evaluating the opportunity cost associated with taking Algebra II for students seeking careers upon high school completion. Keywords High school mathematics  High school course-taking  Algebra II  College readiness  Career readiness  Instrumental variable Introduction Beginning with the 1983 publication of A Nation at Risk, and continuing uninterrupted in the three decades since, American educators and policymakers have engaged in a vigorous Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11162-013-9322-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. M. N. Gaertner (&)  K. L. McClarty Center for College & Career Success, Pearson, 400 Center Ridge Drive, Austin, TX 78753, USA e-mail: matthew.gaertner@pearson.com J. Kim  S. L. DesJardins University of Michigan, 2117-C School of Education Building, 610 E. University Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1259, USA 123 Res High Educ (2014) 55:143–165 DOI 10.1007/s11162-013-9322-7