Charles Murray, in article in The American (2008), asked: “Are Too Many People Going to College?” Then in February 2012, professor and author Andrew Hacker and associate professor and writer Claudia Dreifus writing for The Chronicle, posed an equally valid question: “Are Colleges Worth the Price of Admission?”
But surely a question more relevant than either of those, especially in these recessionary times, is whether students emerge from their years at College with skills and abilities that are useful in the harsh reality of a world where jobs are scarce and so where competition for the better jobs with career prospects is fierce.
Of course there are many, many students who target a particular college based on its “name”, its “ranking”, worrying less about the specific courses offered than acquiring the boasting rights of being a student there. Although one would hope that the young people embarking on their three or four years at college do so with career goals firmly in mind, that sadly is not always the case. For too many “going to college” is their horizon at the outset.
But are the colleges – any or all of them – equipping their young aspirants with the tools needed to live and prosper as a useful part of society after graduating? In my opinion, there are still too many colleges where the professors and tutors go through the motions of getting through the syllabus whilst behind the scenes they are focused on achieving their own primary goals of completing noteworthy research and publishing learned papers to further their own advancement in the world of academia.
A CBI / National Union of Students survey reported on by David Woods of
HR Magazine on their website (May 2011) revealed that 57% of UK students want universities to do more to help them with the skills needed to improve employability, “such as customer awareness, team working and self management.” Almost 80% of the students surveyed gave improving their employment chances as the main reason for going to university. On the other side of the equation, over 80% of businesses cited employability skills as most important when seeking to recruit graduates. Thus it seems to be obvious that work is needed in this area to help both the graduates and their prospective employers.
Of course times are changing and even colleges have to move with the times. Circa 500 colleges in the US now offer so-called “co-op programs”, whereby work experience is integrated into the student’s college curriculum. Not only do participating students get paid for the work they do, but the periods of work experience are planned and arranged in a sequential way to be an integral part of the learning process. As an example of the paid work experience benefits, the average monthly earnings of a co-op student at the University of Cincinnati are between $1700 and $2500.
Typically, a student in one of these programs will graduate with a total of some 18 months work experience accumulated from between five and seven separate paid positions. Wherever possible the actual work experience is related to academic or career objectives and is formally recorded on college records. As further help for participating students, there are ongoing advice facilities as part of preparation for full-time employment after graduation.
The proof of the success of these co-op programs is that some 60% of students on them ultimately accept permanent positions with the co-op employers. Further, an impressive 95% of co-op students find full-time employment immediately after graduating.
More details on this subject are available on the collegeview.com website in an article by Lori Murray, under the heading: “Test-Drive Your Future with a College Co-op Program”.
Though the co-op programs are – unsurprisingly – becoming increasingly popular, there are other initiatives aimed at improving the practicality of the college courses on offer.
One such is a collaborative effort between three Manchester, UK-based universities to promote an event called “Enterprise Futures”. As its name suggests, the project is designed to equip participating students with the tools and techniques to become future entrepreneurs and perhaps embark on self-employed careers after leaving university.
How important is the actual choice of degree course in successfully finding employment after graduation? It could be said that students who enrol at college without any clear view of their post-college goals may simply be wasting those college years if the course they have been offered and accepted isn’t one from which employers are likely to be seeking big numbers of graduates. It’s also true that some courses don’t seem to have the appeal or the “glamour” to attract students. In the UK for example, there is allegedly a chronic shortage of students reading science or engineering degree courses, yet there are reports that many graduates in these disciplines are unable to find “real” jobs after leaving university.
There is also a suggestion from recruiters who specialize in graduate positions that part of the problem is the overall quality of applications. It seems that in the face of known fierce competition for jobs, many submit applications that look as though there was insufficient care taken. The advice therefore is to put 100% effort into every single application submitted. Is this an area that should be a part of the college syllabus?
So is there a single solution? Probably not, but it’s nonetheless true that work is definitely needed, so that students are in general better prepared for “real life”.
Works Cited
Murray, Lori. "Test-Drive Your Future with a College Co-op Program." Careers & Majors – Explore careers and majors to prepare for your future. n.p. n.d. Web. 27 Feb. 2012.
Woods, David. “Students have called for their universities to do better at equipping them for work”. (16 May, 2011). HR Magazine. Web. 27 Feb. 2012.
