Career-connected learning integrates career exploration and job-ready knowledge, skills, and abilities into the curriculum, program by program. It gives students on-ramps toward professional preparation, stackability for room to develop a specialized focus while maintaining progress toward a credential, and enhanced durable skills taught through general education that employers seek for leadership positions in their organizations. Finally, to prepare students for the workforce, career-connected learning offers high-impact experiences: internships, co-ops, apprenticeships, and mentorships that take place in the community beyond campus.

Increasingly, states--and stakeholders--are driving alignment between the nation’s workforce needs and higher education’s academic work.  Also, with the cost of access to the first rungs of tertiary education for traditionally aged students, families need assurance of a strong return on their investment. While students experience a demonstrable return on investment when they graduate from institutions that have based academic planning on career-connected learning, there are wide-ranging benefits for the university in connecting learning to careers, also.

Successful career outcomes for graduates boost a university’s reputation, improving its rankings and attracting organic growth in attention to its academic offerings, therefore reducing cost per acquisition in the enrollment pipeline. Universities can offer learners more high-impact experiences, support, and resources when marketing and enrollment costs are driven down at the beginning of the student journey. When students are admitted to career-connected programs and see high-impact experiences paired with the return on investment that alumni have experienced, they find relevance in the curriculum, from liberal studies and general education’s focus on durable skills to upper-division classes’ challenges. With increased perceived relevance, universities experience increased persistence, and with persistence toward a strong return on investment for completers, universities can bolster our claim of being a public good and holding up our end of the social contract. Our graduates become high earners and taxpayers, in turn investing in their communities and taking an active part in building a high standard of living. In all ways, universities are key in meeting societal needs for workforce-ready employees who create economic growth. With successful university graduates comes greater alumni engagement, willing to form strong industry partnerships with their alma mater plus other high-performing, career-connected tertiary institutions. Alumni networks can pave the way to jobs, creating seamless entries into work so new graduates experience the return on investment that built the university’s reputation in the first place, and the career-connected cycle keeps up its momentum. 

Chief Academic Officers can prioritize career-connected learning. Developing a career-connected academic planning framework is the first step, working with deans, chairs, and faculty to define the boundaries of return on investment and the primary stakeholder groups, as well as the criteria for a program’s contribution to mission achievement, and its quality, viability, and sustainability. By working with academic leadership to develop measurements for career-connected learning, Chief Academic Officers can lead the way to increased outcomes for the university and well-being for students.

As more state-level representatives and higher education leaders adopt a return on investment-based model for assessing universities’ outcomes, one fact becomes increasingly clear: degree completers experience an increase in quality of life, lifetime earnings, and increased potential to grasp opportunities. Public rhetoric is against higher education right now on ideological grounds, but the very real return on their investment that graduates gain is undeniable. With a career-connected framework supporting Chief Academic Officers’ academic planning and public relations, universities have a chance to take back the conversation and point to the mutual benefits that post-secondary learning gives to our students, our communities, and our nation.

References 

Blake, J. (2024, October 11). State lawmakers call for rethinking federal role in higher ed. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/state-policy/2024/10/11/task-force-outlines-plan-tackle-higher-eds-challenges

Carey, K. and Nguyen, S. (2024, October 15). Americans have not turned against higher ed. The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/americans-have-not-turned-against-higher-ed

College Board. (2024). Trends in college pricing. https://research.collegeboard.org/trends/college-pricing

Knott, K. (2024, February 12). Potential breakthrough on federal student data system. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/2024/02/12/potential-breakthrough-federal-student-data-system-us?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=5dedf1b84f-DNU_2021_COPY_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-5dedf1b84f-237891002&mc_cid=5dedf1b84f&mc_eid=33b55936e2

Audra Spicer, MBA PhD
Provost and Chief Academic Officer, Colorado State University Global