Some college leaders seem to believe that issues such as college
costs, student debt, learning outcomes, and placement rates for
graduates are sensationalized by the media and not nearly as serious and
important as they are made out to be. (Maxwell, Dr. David, President,
Drake University, "Time to Play Offense", Inside Higher Education, 2/4/13).
When
parents and students have both made sacrifices and borrowed mightily to
finance the student's college education, how can college leaders
trivialize or ignore the fact that students typically must pay back
$25,000 to $100,000 in college loans and credit card debt? Furthermore,
parents with more than one child have probably done one or more of the
following to cover college costs and related expenses: 1) Taken out
personal loans, 2) Borrowed against their house, 3) Increased their
credit card limits, 4) Tapped into their retirement savings, 5)
Postponed large purchases, repairs and vacations, and 6) Ignored needed
medical and dental procedures.
Many college leaders apparently
have little idea how much debt students and their parents must take on
to complete a four or six year education. Does your college know
exactly how much debt each student has built up by the time they
graduate? Do they know how much money each parent now owes because of
college expenses for their children? Try adding all of that student and
parent debt together to get a total. Do your leaders express any
concern? Are they doing anything about the problem? By the way, for
most students, student loans are not financial aid. They are student
debt that has to be paid back. If a typical student owes say $35,000,
you can estimate the monthly payments for 5, 10, 15 or 20 years.
In
perhaps 60+ percent of the families with two, three or four children,
money is tight. Of course these families care about college costs,
student debt, learning outcomes, and placement rates for graduates.
Parents want their children to graduate with job offers that will enable
them to live independently, take care of their own expenses and begin
to pay back the money they borrowed, and rightly so.
The
preponderance of students want to graduate with a good job, ideally one
in their field of study, at a salary on which they can live. To
accomplish their goals, students need more help than they are receiving
from most colleges today. It is time for large numbers of college
leaders to wake up, step up and pay more attention to the employment
needs of their financially stressed students. To effectively meet these
needs, college leaders will have to mobilize and refocus their college
communities, provide resources and implement methods and systems that
can improve student employment results.
Ignoring such a
significant issue speaks poorly of college leaders. Great college
leaders put students first, take on the difficult problems and solve
them. Poor leaders deceive themselves and others, put other priorities
ahead of students, make excuses, shift blame, resist change and never
realize how many students they have prevented from maximizing their
success in the job market.
Importantly, far too many colleges fail
to accumulate, analyze, utilize and share the statistics and
information that will show them how well they are serving the employment
needs of students. To serve students effectively, colleges must know
how they are doing in areas other than academics. The factors used to
evaluate student employment success and a college's job search
preparation performance can be displayed on a spreadsheet chart with the
following column headings. (See Below) For columns 2 - 15, a number
should be inserted for every major offered.
Student Employment Success Chart
Column 1 - "Majors" - List each major (All 60 - 100+) offered by your college.
Column 2 - "Graduates" - Number of graduates in each major?
Column 3 - "Related" - Number who accepted job offers directly related to their majors.
Column 4 - "Unrelated" - Number who accepted job offers unrelated to their majors.
Column 5 - "No Job Offer" - Number who received NO job offers by graduation.
Column 6 - "Received" - Average # of job offers received by students in each major.
Column 7 - "Percent" - Percent of students in each major receiving one or more job offers.
Column 8 - "Improvement" - Percent improvement (+) decline (-) from the previous year.
Column 9 - "Dollars" - Average $ amount of job offers received by students in each major.
Column 10 - "National" - National average $ amount offered to students in each major.
Column 11 - "Employers" - Number of employers visiting campus to recruit each major.
Column 12 - "Interviews" - Student interviews on campus for Full-Time jobs in each major.
Column 13 - "UnRel Int" - Student interviews on campus for jobs unrelated to their major.
Column 14 - "Internships" - Number of internships that were available in each major.
Column 15 - "P/T Jobs" - Number of Part-Time Jobs that were available in each major.
Note:
Colleges should complete this chart as students graduate each year.
Columns 3 - 9 can be resurveyed after six months (using Columns 16 - 22)
to see how many additional students have been employed and how much the
numbers have changed.
Column 16 - "Related" - Number who accepted job offers directly related to their majors.
Column 17 - "Unrelated" - Number who accepted job offers unrelated to their majors.
Column 18 - "No Job Offer" - Number who received NO job offers.
Column 19 - "Received" - Average # of job offers received by students in each major.
Column 20 - "Percent" - Percent of students in each major receiving one or more job offers.
Column 21 - "Improvement" - Percent improvement (+) decline (-) from the previous year.
Column 22 - "Dollars" -Average $ amount of job offers received by students in each major.
Some
colleges will be uncomfortable with this tool and may refuse to use it,
try to discredit it or keep the results confidential. However, great
college leaders utilize analytical tools that will help them evaluate
performance and make better decisions. They do not ignore or obfuscate
the numbers and facts. They stay on top of them, value them and
continually take steps to improve them. Smaller leaders ignore or even
hide these numbers and try to shift the focus away from their college's
performance.
College leaders who only provide students with the
most basic career and job search assistance seldom track their
performance and can only guess how well their students are doing in the
job market. It is likely that some college leaders do not want to know.
At the other extreme, whenever a college leader says something like,
"97% of our students are employed within six months of graduation", it
raises questions. Colleges that boast exceptionally high placement
rates seldom provide any details to backup their statements. It would
be interesting to know whether the statement is true, what job titles
those students now hold and how much they are being paid (Would you like
fries with that?).
Those college leaders either do not care what
happens to their students or they are unwilling to face the truth. Such
leaders are clearly ignoring the needs and wants of their students.
The best leaders recognize that students do not simply attend college to
obtain a good education, they need, want and expect colleges to guide
them through the job search preparation process, so they can effectively
compete for employment opportunities.
Question 1: How much
money will students need to earn in order to live on their own, cover
all of the normal living expenses and pay back their college loans?
Whatever
it is, that number is critical. Students who are not able to obtain a
job which offers a living wage rate will immediately start off in a big
hole. Students and parents already know that. Not all colleges seem to
care about that fact.
Question 2: How many majors does your college offer where few jobs exist and/or the starting rate is very low?
Colleges
that offer many majors in fields where there are few jobs or only low
paying jobs are also likely to provide students will little useful job
search preparation assistance. They send students out into the job
market unprepared to compete for the few positions that pay a living
wage. Some would ask why a college would offer so many majors that have
very few employment opportunities and do so little to help students
with their job search, although we all know the answer.
Question 3:
Why would a college that does a good job of preparing students for
their field of study not do an equally good job of helping students
identify, prepare for, pursue and land good jobs?
The leaders of
each college should think about and answer this question. Since very
few students know how to prepare for and conduct a comprehensive and
effective job search, they need help. Because grades alone are no
longer enough for most employers, students need to hear (from day one)
that there are things they should be doing during each semester to make
themselves stronger employment candidates. Thereafter, students need
ongoing training and coaching, so they can achieve the level of
readiness that is needed to compete for the best jobs.
Question 4:
Does your college say, "It is not our responsibility to help students
prepare for and conduct an effective search for employment? or "We
really don't care if our students obtain good jobs. or "We aren't going
to devote the time, money and resources to student job search
preparation assistance."
College leaders do not verbalize those
negative sentiments. However, some of those leaders make their distant,
uncaring approach known by ignoring this important issue and by
starving the functions that try to help students prepare for their
senior year job search.
Question 5: Does your college ever survey students and parents to find out what is important to them, like graduating with a good job?
Of
course, college leaders should not ask those questions if they do not
want to know or do not intend to do anything about the issues they
identify.
The Most Important Question: Why would any
college leader ask students to work so hard toward their dreams, let
them get close but not allow them to touch those dreams?
Unfortunately,
that is exactly what happens to many students when a college does not
provide the help, concern and guidance that students need to get ready
to pursue and win the job offers they deserve.
Colleges that have
delegated the job search preparation and student employment functions to
a single department with a one employee or less for each one thousand
students cannot possibly believe that they are being successful in
providing the information, training and guidance that students deserve
and need.
Students want only three things: 1) A good education, 2)
An enjoyable college experience, and 3) A good job when they graduate.
With that in mind, students need and want leaders who believe in them,
stand up for them, fight for them and want them to be successful in
everything they do. For students, success means not only graduating
with a good education, it also means graduating with a good job, one
that will help fulfill their dreams and launch their careers. College
leaders who will not or cannot effectively address the needs of their
students in all three areas will be remembered for their inflexibility,
shortcomings and failures rather than their effectiveness, forward
thinking and successes.
Students need college leaders who not only
claim innovation, agility and flexibility in their strategic plans,
they need leaders who demonstrate those qualities by fully and
enthusiastically addressing the employment preparation needs of their
students. Unfortunately, too many college students see leaders who
accept and even encourage understaffed, underfunded, uninspired and very
limited employment preparation efforts that reach too few students and
force many good students to enter the job market unprepared to compete
for the jobs that pay a living rate. For large numbers of students to
find employment success, the entire college community must come together
to provide the information, training and guidance that is needed. Does
that happen at your college?
College leaders must be expected to
anticipate and adjust to the changing needs of students. Helping large
numbers of students prepare for their senior year job search is an
important part of the job. When two thirds (or more) of your students
do not know how to prepare for and conduct a comprehensive and effective
job search and have not done the things that employers need, want and
expect, something is terribly wrong.
The willingness of college
leaders to go the extra mile and help students successfully launch their
careers will always be seen as adding great value to the college
experience. No longer can colleges, even those with praiseworthy
academic programs, ignore what is obvious to students and parents.
Students want and need good jobs when they graduate. It is time for
college leaders to step up, recognize the need and address that need
with enthusiasm and determination.
Bob Roth, a former campus recruiter, is the author of four books:
The College Student's Companion, College Success: Advice for Parents of
High School and College Students, The College Student's Guide To
Landing A Great Job -and- The 4 Realities Of Success During and After
College. Known as The "College & Career Success" Coach, Bob writes
articles for College Career Services Offices, Campus Newspapers, Parent
Associations and Employment Web Sites. Bob has created The Job
Identification Machine™, a system that colleges use to identify
thousands of employment opportunities for students. He has been
interviewed on numerous radio programs across the country and by many
publications, including U.S. News & World Report and The Wall Street
Journal.
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