Beyond the Degree: Empowering Graduates’ Futures

Colleges and universities need to launch careers, not just produce graduates.

Currently, however, many institutions aren’t doing enough to promote real-world, postgraduation career readiness. Especially at the campuses that serve the largest number of Pell Grant–eligible students, underemployment of bachelor’s degree holders is a critical issue.

A recent report indicates that these institutions are doing a particularly poor job of preparing their graduates for the workforce. Career outcomes, including graduates’ postcollege salary, may not be the only way to assess the value of a college education. But colleges and universities are remiss if they fail to focus on that metric.

As Doug Lederman recently reported in Inside Higher Ed, a recent Burning Glass study found that roughly four in 10 college graduates are underemployed a decade later—that is, they hold jobs that either didn’t require a college degree (like policing) or that are unrelated to their college major.

Since the current century’s start, a college access agenda has given way to a completion agenda and now to a postgraduation outcomes agenda. But none of those objectives has been met. While access to higher ed has increased, for students from low-income backgrounds, this has largely meant access to community colleges and underfunded institutions with the lowest graduation rates.

Meanwhile, the six-year graduation rate has stagnated around 60 percent, while postgraduation underemployment rates haven’t budged much. What can campuses do to improve graduates’ postcollege employment prospects?

In a recent Forbes column, Brandon Busteed, who writes frequently on education and workforce development, offers entering college students the following advice: Study whatever you’d like, but do these three things:

1. Complete an internship,
2. Carry out a long-term project (a semester or longer) and
3. Obtain an industry-recognized credential.

An internship, Carlo Salerno of Burning Glass and Gary Daynes of Back Porch Consulting point out, reduces by nearly half the likelihood of being underemployed postgraduation. Also, by undertaking a work-related project, acquiring industry-recognized credentials and becoming proficient with industry-specific software, college graduates can significantly improve their career prospects.

These experiences not only enhance their résumés, they demonstrate commitment, initiative and perseverance; provide concrete evidence of skills and the ability to handle complex tasks; and ensure familiarity with the latest industry practices, standards and technologies. Busteed’s suggestions are good ones, but they’re very hard to implement at scale, especially at underresourced institutions.

Certainly, institutions should:

• Partner with local businesses, nonprofits and government agencies and leverage alumni networks to create internship opportunities.
• Promote on-campus and virtual internships, which are more accessible and less costly for students, and seek funding from donors, alumni and grants to provide scholarships or stipends for students who undertake unpaid or low-paid internships.
• Integrate certifications into existing courses so that students can earn credentials as part of their coursework.
• Offer workshops and training sessions on industry-specific software and skills, led by faculty, alumni or industry professionals.
• Promote free or low-cost online courses from platforms like Amazon, Coursera, edX, Google or LinkedIn Learning that offer training in industry-specific skills and credentials.
• Strengthen career services to help students find internships, projects and certification opportunities.
• Organize and promote attendance at industry conferences, job fairs and networking events where students can connect with potential employers and learn about industry trends.
• Create alumni mentorship programs where graduates can provide guidance, share experiences and help current students navigate their career paths.

But there are other steps that even the most resource-constrained campuses can take to produce career-ready graduates.

1. Introduce career readiness at an undergraduate education’s start. Make sure that all undergraduates are familiar with job market trends and majors’ employment outcomes. Conduct workshops that focus on exploring different career fields, industries and roles. Consider instituting a course like the City University of New York’s Ethnographies of Work, which introduces students to sociological and anthropological perspectives on work and exposes students to workplace cultures as they investigate a range of career possibilities.
2. Do more to help students assess career interests, strengths and opportunities. Teach students how to set SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) goals for their career development. Incorporate reflective assignments that encourage students to mull over their career aspirations, engage in self-assessment, conduct career research, explore job search strategies and develop a realistic path toward achieving those goals.
3. Ensure that every undergraduate has access to a mentor who can provide advice and guidance and write compelling letters of recommendation. Institute first-year learning communities and thematic or career-aligned interest groups led by a faculty or staff mentor, in which students can discuss their academic progress, career plans and personal development. Ensure that groups of students are assigned a mentor, preferably within their major. Establish peer mentoring programs where upperclassmen or graduate students provide advice and support to freshmen and sophomores. Utilize the college’s alumni network to connect current students with alumni mentors who can provide industry-specific advice, career guidance and help with networking. Implement virtual mentorship opportunities via online platforms and organize networking events with faculty, alumni and industry professionals.
4. Embed quantitative and data skills across the curriculum. In today’s data-driven world, quantitative analysis is essential. Campuses need to expand opportunities for students to acquire facility with spreadsheets, databases and data visualization and analytics tools. Strategies that colleges can use to ensure that students from all disciplines have basic competency in interpreting and using quantitative data include:

• Offering interdisciplinary courses that combine quantitative skills with specific domain knowledge, such as Data Analysis in the Social Sciences or Quantitative Methods in Environmental Studies.
• Integrating quantitative and data analysis modules into existing courses across different majors. For example, include data visualization in art classes, statistical methods in psychology or economic modeling in business courses.
• Establishing data labs or centers to provide support for both faculty and students in learning and applying quantitative methods through workshops, tutoring and access to software and data sets.
• Offering workshops, boot camps and online tutorials on quantitative and data analysis skills outside of regular class time.
• Establishing learning communities or clubs focused on quantitative skills, where students can collaborate, share knowledge and work on projects together and organize hackathons, data challenges and competitions that encourage students to apply their quantitative skills to solve real-world problems.
• Partnering with local businesses, nonprofits and government agencies to create internship opportunities that require quantitative and data analysis skills and foster collaboration between students and faculty on research projects that involve data collection, analysis and interpretation.

5. Make it easier for students to combine academic and work responsibilities. All too often, students’ academic and work responsibilities conflict. Certainly, colleges should create a more flexible, supportive and accommodating environment for working students by offering more online, hybrid, evening, weekend and intersession classes and increasing the number of on-campus jobs with flexible hours. But campuses should also do more to promote work-integrated learning. Rather than placing work and academics in opposition, it is possible to make sure that students’ work responsibilities contribute to their education. Here’s how.

• Cultivate a supportive culture. Foster a culture that values experiential learning and recognizes the educational benefits of work experiences. Highlight success stories and examples of students who have successfully integrated work and academic responsibilities. Create recognition programs for students who excel in integrating work and academic learning, showcasing their achievements and promoting the benefits of such integration.
• Help students find jobs that contribute to their education, for example, by working with industry, nonprofits and government to create work-related learning opportunities. Ask community partners to provide capstone project opportunities where students can work on industry-relevant problems as part of their final year projects.
• Build reflection and assessment into students’ work responsibilities and award academic credit for these activities. Require students to keep reflection journals or write essays that connect their work experiences with their academic learning. Encourage students to develop portfolios that include work projects and reflections, showcasing their integrated learning experiences. Use learning contracts that outline specific learning objectives for work experiences. Schedule regular review sessions with advisers or mentors to discuss progress on learning objectives and ensure that work experiences are meeting educational goals.
• Offer scholarships and grants to support students participating in unpaid or low-paid internships, service learning or other experiential learning opportunities.

6. Build a campus culture that values experiential learning. Experiential learning can significantly improve students’ career readiness. It allows them to apply theoretical knowledge to real-world scenarios and helps them develop practical skills that are directly relevant to their future careers. Engaging in hands-on projects can also help students develop their problem-solving abilities by tackling actual challenges and finding effective solutions, while enhancing their soft skills, improving their communication and teamwork skills, and fostering leadership skills and self-confidence. Hands-on experience gained through experiential learning can not only enhance students’ résumés but allow them to explore different fields and roles and develop a clearer understanding of what to expect in their careers. Yet experiential learning remains all too rare. The number of students who take part in structured research or project-based learning is much too small. Changing that won’t be easy, but it’s well worthwhile. However, it will require shifts in curricula, pedagogy and faculty roles.

• Embed collaborative, team-based, real-world projects or service-learning components into existing courses.
• Require majors to institute a capstone project involving significant research and practical application.
• Create innovation labs, maker spaces and other facilities where students can engage in hands-on learning and collaborative projects.
• Provide funding for students to undertake experiential learning projects, including travel grants for fieldwork and stipends for unpaid internships.
• Share success stories of students who have benefited from experiential learning through campus publications, social media and events.

An emphasis on career preparation need not be at odds with a well-rounded liberal education. In fact, an emphasis on career development can complement and enhance a liberal education and better prepare students for success in both their professional and personal lives. The key lies in integrating practical skills and experiences with the broad-based critical thinking, ethical reasoning and cultural understanding that are the hallmarks of a liberal education. To that end, develop courses that combine liberal arts and career-specific content. Obvious examples include Ethics in Business or Communication in the Digital Age.

Offer interdisciplinary majors and minors that bridge liberal arts and professional fields, such as environmental studies, data science or international business. Develop internships and service learning and experiential learning opportunities that allow students to apply their liberal arts knowledge and skills in professional settings and that address community or business needs.

The benefits of integrating liberal and pre-career education are obvious. A liberal education fosters personal growth, self-awareness and a lifelong love of learning, while career preparation ensures students acquire the practical skills needed for professional success. The combination produces graduates who are more adaptable and resilient and better able to navigate changes in the job market and career landscape. In addition, employers seek employees who possess both technical skills and the soft skills fostered by a liberal education, and graduates with a well-rounded education are often seen as potential leaders who can think strategically and understand the broader implications of their work.

It strikes me as vital that those of us in the humanities stress that liberal education and career preparation are two sides of the same coin. They are not only compatible but also mutually reinforcing, synergistic and conjointly beneficial, providing students with the broad knowledge base and practical skills needed for success as budding professionals and emerging or mature adults. A key task that lies ahead lies in fusing and harmonizing (critical) thinking and doing, theory and practice and a humanistic, holistic education and career skills. One ought not exist without the other.

After all, a liberal education without career preparation is partial and incomplete, missing the practical application of knowledge. Pre-professional training without a humanistic education is narrow and blinkered, lacking the depth of critical thinking and ethical perspective.