Thinking About Life After College  

Students Olivia Wing and Sam Semsel, both on track to graduate in May, are having two very different college experiences. Wing, 19, from New Hampshire, is studying early childhood education at NHTI-Concord’s Community College, via a mix of online and in-person courses. Semsel, 21, from New Jersey, is majoring in government and law and minoring in philosophy at Lafayette College, a private liberal arts institution in Pennsylvania. She’s studying exclusively in person.

The women diverge in their career goals, as well. Wing ultimately hopes to be a stay-at-home mom but plans to continue working in early childhood education until she has children. Semsel plans on attending law school after she takes some time off after graduation.

Still, both Wing and Semsel express confidence that college is setting them up for future success. Wing has already seen her education make a difference: She’s applying what she’s learning every day at the day-care facility where she works, and she’ll be eligible for a promotion to lead teacher once she finishes her current set of courses. She’s been able to work full-time during her studies and count that as practical experience toward her degree, which was tuition-free due to a state grant program designed to address the dearth of early childhood educators.

“At first I was like, ‘Oh, I’m kind of just watching the kids,’” she says of work at the day care. “Versus now, where I’m applying a curriculum and teaching them and actually being their caregiver, rather than just babysitting them, per se.”

While she hasn’t used her college’s career center, Wing credits her level of preparation to faculty members, whom she often consults for advice. “One big takeaway is utilizing what the professors know. I’ve asked so many questions just to my professors, not even about school—just life in general. And they’re always so willing to help out.”

Semsel, meanwhile, partly credits her confidence to her interactions with Lafayette’s Gateway Career Center. Her mother first encouraged her to visit the center, but she attributes her sustained engagement with her assigned career adviser and career services to her own initiative. Semsel’s sense of confidence also comes from having taken advantage of the resources and experiences available to her through Lafayette, such as undergraduate research and an internship at a local nonprofit.

Yes, Semsel says, the career center could get more creative about how it incentivizes students to engage (she suggests a small scholarship drawing), and some courses could benefit from guest speakers working in the relevant field. But she emphasizes the role of student agency in career readiness.

“I have had experiences that have been able to help my growth,” she says. “But at the same time, you have to initiate those experiences and do those experiences yourself. You can’t just expect those experiences to come to you. Sometimes they do—and that’s great. But to reap all the benefits from college, you have to make it happen yourself.”

Semsel continues, “So, yeah, I feel, not very confident—that’s a little strong—but confident. Confident that Lafayette has prepared me. But it’s not just Lafayette preparing me; it’s also what I’ve done for myself in Lafayette.”

So, two students, two different stories, one big similarity: A sense of confidence in their future success, as they define it.

Another similarity? Wing and Semsel happen to be two of the more than 5,000 two- and four-year respondents to Inside Higher Ed’s annual Student Voice survey with Generation Lab, in which a majority of students also say they’re at least somewhat confident that their education and experiences in college have prepared them for success. Read on for an overview of what students had to say about their institution’s career readiness efforts, plus analysis from experts working in this space. A few spoilers: Students are lukewarm on their campus career centers but hot on finding internships. They also expect a relatively high level of faculty involvement in career readiness.

Usage and Opinions of Career Center and Staff

Asked about their experiences with their college’s career center and staff, a third of students (33 percent) indicate they have no experience with the career center. This is on par with a 2023 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed and College Pulse, in which 31 percent of students (mainly traditional aged at four-year institutions) said they’d never interacted with their college or university career center.

In this year’s survey, the share of students who haven’t interacted with their center decreases to 22 percent among private nonprofit institution students (versus 35 percent of public institution students). This difference can’t be explained by the inclusion of two-year students in the public sample: 35 percent of community college–goers haven’t used their center, similar to 33 percent of four-year students. Region appears to factor in: Students in the New England area have the lowest nonusage rate (27 percent), and those in the Rocky Mountains (53 percent) and far West (43 percent) have the highest.

Among students who indicate they’ve used the center (n=3,345), half describe it as welcoming. Just over a third of this group, however, says the center offers a lot of service and supports, and just three in 10 each say it’s effective, that it has sufficient online resources and that staff are knowledgeable about the job market. Even fewer students select other possible descriptors from a long list, such as that it’s a popular campus space, that staff are forward-thinking and that staff partner with professors and others on campus. Still, very few of these students (5 percent) report explicitly negative interactions with the center and its staff.

Priorities for Career Development and Support

Which aspects of career development services do students think their institution should prioritize or focus on more? The No. 1 choice, by far, is helping students find internships and job possibilities (48 percent). This is consistent across institution type. By student age, this figure drops—to 43 percent—among students 25 and up. And it increases incrementally by income bracket, to 55 percent among students with household incomes of $200,000 or more, the highest bracket. By race, Black students are least likely to prioritize this kind of help (44 percent) and Asian American and Pacific Islander students are most likely to do so (53 percent).

Students’ No. 2 priority here? Help preparing for internship and career success, such as support in developing people skills and awareness of workplace expectations (38 percent). No. 3 is raising awareness of and connecting students to employers (36 percent).

Effectiveness of Career Efforts

Asked to rate their institution’s efforts at supporting undergraduates in career exploration and development, about a third of students say it’s average (35 percent). But another third say it’s good (34 percent). Some 11 percent say it’s excellent. The rest say it’s below average (9 percent), poor (3 percent) or they don’t know (9 percent).

Students at private nonprofit institutions are somewhat more likely to rate these efforts as excellent (15 percent) than their public institution peers (10 percent).

Professors and Career Prep

Regarding the faculty role in undergraduate career exploration and development, the No. 1 thing students say faculty members are responsible for is being a mentor (55 percent choose this). Preparing students for careers and sharing how careers in their fields are evolving are also popular choices from a list of options (at 46 percent each). Fewer students say professors are responsible for more direct assistance, such as helping students find internships or job opportunities.

Sector appears to matter here, with two in three private nonprofit institution students saying faculty members should be a mentor, versus only about half of public institution students. Private nonprofit institution students are also more likely to say that professors are responsible for sharing how careers in their field are evolving. In Inside Higher Ed’s recent survey of 199 student success administrators, leaders at private nonprofits were also more likely to say that faculty members are responsible for helping students build their professional network. But in this survey, private nonprofit institution students themselves aren’t more likely to feel this way.

Stressed About Their Future

How do students rate their stress level as they think about and prepare for life postgraduation? Nearly half are somewhat stressed, and an additional two in 10 are extremely stressed. Another quarter are a little stressed. Very few (7 percent) are not at all stressed. This is consistent across institution types and student demographics.

Does usage of the career center impact these numbers? No. Among only those students who indicate they’ve used the center, 20 percent are extremely stressed and 47 percent are somewhat stressed. Class year doesn’t inoculate students from stress about their future, either. Even 20 percent of first-year students are extremely stressed.

There is a clear mental health connection to stress about preparing for postgraduation life: Students who identify as having mental health issue or mental illness (n=1,125) are much more likely than those with physical or learning disabilities or the group over all to say they’re extremely stressed (30 percent).

Confident in Their Success

Even as most students are at least somewhat stressed about life after college, responses to the success question are more positive: A majority of students say they’re at least somewhat confident that their education and experiences in college are preparing them for success, however they define it. Another two in 10 students are very confident. Nearly another two in 10 are not too confident, and just 5 percent are not at all confident.

Students at private nonprofit institutions are somewhat more likely to say they’re very confident than are students at publics (24 percent versus 19 percent, respectively). Other breakdowns:

• By region, students in the far West (14 percent) are least likely to say this.
• By age, relatively more students 25 and older are very confident (26 percent) than students 18–24 (18 percent).
• By race, AAPI students are least likely to say they’re very confident (13 percent).
• By income level, students with household incomes at or above $200,000 are most likely to say they’re very confident (29 percent).
• By gender, just 9 percent of nonbinary students (n=191) say they’re very confident.

Students studying exclusively in person (n=2,527) also appear somewhat more confident than those studying exclusively online (n=854), with 80 percent of the former being somewhat or very confident versus 74 percent of the latter.

What the Career Readiness Experts Say

Beyond students, we asked several experts working in career readiness what sticks out to them about the survey findings.

Prepped for success: Shawn VanDerziel, president and CEO of the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), says “the good news is that students see their institution as doing well in supporting their career exploration and development,” and that most students—like Wing and Semsel—express confidence in how their education and college experiences are preparing them for success after graduation. To VanDerziel, this means their experiences have been valuable, which corresponds with NACE’s own polling, in which 91 percent of graduating four-year students said they’d pursue a college degree again. And in a separate Student Voice flash survey by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab published earlier this year, nearly all students said their college education is valuable.

Entrepreneur Ann Kirschner, a professor of the practice at Arizona State University who recently served as interim president of Hunter College of the City University of New York, agrees that the “good news is that most students are feeling pretty confident that they have been prepared for success,” though she highlights the difference between students at public and private nonprofit institutions, linking it to many of the latter having a relative wealth of resources—and to students at large, public “commuter campuses” being more likely to have job responsibilities outside of college and family. Why? This can affect “their ability to build the relationships and networks that are so important in careers.”

Career centers: Matthew T. Hora, professor of adult and higher education and founding director of the Center for Research on College-Workforce Transition at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, says that many colleges realized around 2010 that their centers for teaching and learning and faculty development “needed to shift from an optional, pseudo-professional unit to a more well-resourced and skilled service unit.” That didn’t just mean “nice buildings, fancy software or more money,” he continues, but also “more skilled and well-paid professionals.”

Hora argues that higher ed is now at a similar inflection point regarding career centers, and that the Student Voice data on students’ experiences with these units suggest they’re staffed with “really nice, well-intentioned people,” but not necessarily those “who can really work closely with employers and classroom instructors.” And that’s a “huge problem,” he adds, citing his own “predilection for work-integrated learning in the classroom as the most accessible form of career-oriented and effective learning.”

VanDerziel says he’s glad to see the number of students who’ve had a negative experience with their career center is low. Moreover, all the services students want their institution to prioritize are specialties of most career centers. NACE’s own research suggests that the most used career office services are résumé preparation, interview preparation and internship guidance—and that students who used their career center do see a bump in number of job offers.

Students want to be connected to employers, and career fairs and information sessions produce “good return for the students, too,” he adds.

To Kirschner, it appears that career services “still rates a big ‘meh’ from most students.” Regarding the gap between students’ confidence in future success and career center ratings, she asks what is driving that confidence, if not career services support (and suggests this merits further inquiry).

Internships: Hora says the data highlight the ongoing supply-demand problem in the internship market, adding that students asking their college to help them find an internship are “unfortunately barking up the wrong tree at this time.” Institutions, government and “other actors need to either a) figure out a way to help employers create more positions or (b) stop hawking internships and shift attention to in-class or on-campus [work-integrated learning] experiences.”

Kirschner half kids, “What do students want? They want internships, internships and internships. Did I mention internships?” This isn’t quite news to Kirschner, who in her own work of late has focused on how to get students access to internships at scale. Case in point: HunterWorks!, a program she started at Hunter to build strategies to generate large numbers of internships.

“At the publics, where we need thousands of internships—we won’t get there with little boutique efforts,” she says. “It will take large-scale commitments to employer partnerships.” And to build those, “we need senior people with private sector experience, and those biz-dev types largely don’t exist at most universities.” Most of all, she continues, “we need a fresh look at alumni relations, which expands from fundraising to building strategic connections between employers and the institution.”

VanDerziel says students understand that internships “can make a significant difference for them in their career development and job search, and they are right. It’s the most important résumé-builder for them to get noticed by an employer.” And while most career centers do offer internship assistance, he says, “unfortunately, oftentimes, students aren’t aware that help is available.” To build awareness, faculty members and others can be “conduits to connect students to the career center for help, and colleges should generally prioritize this service availability in student messaging from day one.”

Faculty responsibility: Speaking of faculty responsibility, Hora says that students’ thoughts on the professor’s role in career development and exploration demonstrate a “huge disconnect between student expectations and the realistic skills and capabilities of our teaching workforce, which is increasingly contingent and unable to do adequate mentoring, networking, et cetera.”

But VanDerziel reiterates that career readiness is “everyone’s job on a college campus—after all, that’s the reason most students are there and expect their college to be focused on it.” He notes that faculty members are experts in their fields, that they’re often students’ primary point of contact with the institution and that elsewhere in the survey students identify them as the most trusted group on campus. Faculty members can also help “cut through the noise to direct students to career resources and bring resources right into the classroom that help make connections for students.”

The mental health link: Kirschner says the most concerning findings were those on stress, with most students feeling this way about life after college.

Even at the best-resourced institutions, we are not doing enough to help students maintain balance and look ahead with confidence and joy.”

—Ann Kirschner, a professor of the practice at Arizona State University

VanDerziel worries about this, too, saying that “higher ed needs to help students with these life skills and provide services that will set them up for future success.” But he says that graduates are taking job security and well-being, including mental health, into account choosing where to work, according to NACE research.

Rebekah Pryor Paré, founder and chief strategy officer at Paré Consulting, which helps higher education leaders transform carer services, underscores the apparent misalignment between students’ level of confidence in preparation for postgraduate success and their stress when thinking about their postgraduate life. And she says it’s “bewildering” that career preparation isn’t a bigger part of the collegiate mental health crisis conversation.

“This pressure begins in high school, and students take it with them. Universities who want to make progress on student well-being need to keep this in mind.”

Is your alumni relations office working to help establish corporate partnerships to expand internship opportunities? Tell us about it.