Texas, now the eighth-largest economy in the world, continues to be a job creation powerhouse, adding over 26,000 jobs in just the last month and nearly 200,000 over the past year. But according to the Dallas Fed’s Economic Outlook, “labor availability” continues to rank as a top concern among Texas businesses. If we want to sustain this major economic growth, we must invest in the workforce readiness of our next generation.

Our state’s leadership has recognized the importance of doing just that. Gov. Greg Abbott rightly named “career education” as a priority in his State of the State address. From that charge, state legislators, led by state Rep. Keith Bell, R-Forney, crafted House Bill 120, which would promote the college, career and military readiness of students across Texas.

The bill, as passed in the House, would make several strategic investments, the most significant being new targeted resources for advising in high school. Investing in high-quality advising to connect students to the right opportunities is a proven workforce strategy that delivers real options for students and real returns for taxpayers.

The Institute of Education Sciences, working alongside the Texas Tri-Agency, has found that students with an individualized career plan developed with an adviser experience “increased postsecondary engagement, improved academic performance” and ultimately “higher future earnings.”

These findings are borne out by the outcomes achieved by Uplift Education, a public charter provider with locations across north central Texas. Uplift has made intentional investments in high school advising, keeping student-adviser ratios as low as 50:1. Their network has a college enrollment rate of 92% (compared to 48% for the state of Texas), a college completion rate of 55% (compared to 26% statewide) and its recent graduates ages 25-30 earn an average of nearly $70,000 annually, compared to an average of $45,000 for that age group in the same region.

HB 120 would provide the resources to bring student-to-advisor ratios down from an average of roughly 350:1 to 200:1, a significant step toward the positive outcomes seen by Uplift and others. This focus on improving advisor access is supported by a vast bipartisan majority of Texas voters — 94% agree that high school students should have access to high-quality college and career advising, according to polling conducted by Ragnar Research Partners and the Commit Partnership. But that’s far from all this legislation promises to do.

The bill would do even more to expand career training by tripling our investment in Pathways in Technology and Early College High Schools, or P-TECHs. These innovative high schools allow students to earn a diploma and a postsecondary credential while gaining hands-on work experience in high-demand careers. It also enhances access to career pathways in rural Texas by expanding the Rural Pathway Excellence Partnership program, also known as R-PEP. This program allows rural school systems to share career technical facilities and resources with students in neighboring districts, so students aren’t limited by where they live in their pursuit of a specific certification or skill that will provide career success and financial stability.

HB 120 aims to build on the momentum of recent actions by Texas policymakers to make these workforce pathways more accessible to students. The greatest example of this is last session’s House Bill 8, signed into law by Abbott, which made a transformational investment in our state’s community college system. Community colleges are a critical part of our workforce development efforts, awarding over 95% of all the career and technical education credentials in the state.

But our students can’t benefit from the great workforce-aligned training at community colleges if they don’t know it’s there. Or when to apply. Or how to access financial aid.

Only 1 in 4 of our students go on to earn a degree or credential six years after high school graduation, and the transition out of high school is where we see most students fall off the path to self-sufficiency, as studies show. We must prioritize supporting students during this critical juncture to produce the talent of tomorrow that will fill the tens of thousands of jobs we are creating today. The strategic investments contained in HB 120 promise to do just that.

Justin Yancy is president of the Texas Business Leadership Council, a statewide network of CEOs and senior business executives.