Rising youth unemployment has been arousing increasing concern in nearly all the industrial democracies, while it has become more clear throughout the 1970's that prolongation of schooling has brought severe problems of adjustment for young people who are being held in school through a combination of parental and societal pressures, and are not deriving much benefit from it. Discussed here are the ways these problems are being met in other countries. Chapters address these issues: schooling, employment, and community behavior; special problems of young women; sixteen as the school-leaving age; current reform proposals for schooling, employment, and youth service; education for work and work as education; new directions in vocational education; fundamental restructuring of schools; equality of opportunity (access to education); the responsibilities of postsecondary education; costs and methods of financing reform; better paths into labor markets; employment policies for the deprived; current proposals for youth service; a national education fund as a path to self-help; a balance sheet of costs and benefits to society; and responsibilities of the U.S. Congress, the administration, the states, school districts, mayors and city councils, colleges and universities, and foundations. Appended are "Lessons from Other Industrial Countries," a list of Carnegie Council volumes on education and youth employment, participants and observers of international symposia (1976 and 1977), and a list of experts on aspects of youth problems. A bibliography is included. (MSE)