Survey of Higher Education Efforts to Assess Job Market Conditions & Student Outcomes 07/2015 (ISBN No:978-1-57440-346-6 )

This study looks closely at how colleges and universities measure job market trends and assess how their graduates are faring.   The study helps its readers answer questions such as: how and how often do colleges survey local employers and their own graduates to find out about job market conditions? How much manpower are colleges devoting to the task of assessing job market conditions? Which college departments are most involved? Are they devoting increasing resources to this objective? How are they surveying graduates and employers?  What is the role of federal and other data sources? How have colleges been influenced by the Obama Administration's moves to measure the capabilities of colleges in enhancing the work outcomes of their students? What kind of services, software or consultants are colleges using to help them to measure student outcomes?41 colleges and universities participated in the study and data is broken out by college type, size, level of tuition and other variables.

Just a few of the study’s many findings are that:

• 75% of community college sampled survey local employers.

• Colleges in the sample spent a mean of 951 staff hours assessing labor market conditions and graduate outcomes.

• 54.55% of schools with annual tuition costs of more than $20,000 survey their own alumni about their livelihoods.