How liberal arts colleges can make career services a priority

Troubling evidence suggests the public is losing confidence in colleges’ ability to deliver a meaningful return on students’ investment. 

Researchers recently found that 56% of Americans think a four-year college degree isn’t worth the cost because graduates often lack specific job skills and have mounds of student debt, according to a March survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago for The Wall Street Journal. This is a 16-point increase from 2013, and those aged 18-34 reported the highest levels of skepticism.

This underscores that we cannot simply hand students their degrees and say, “Good luck.” Colleges must proactively help students pave the way from the classroom to their desired careers, just as we help them develop the critical thinking skills that will serve them in all their life’s pursuits. 

As dean of the University of Chicago’s undergraduate college for the last three decades, I have seen firsthand how much students benefit from robust career services — and how insufficient career support can negatively impact their college experience.  

When I first became dean in 1992, many of our alumni shared that the career support they received from the university had — to put it diplomatically — room for improvement. 

Alumni from the ‘70s to the early ‘90s recalled that the only formal career support they received from the college was a single staff member offering them a shoebox full of index cards listing job openings.

We needed to do better. That’s why I made it a priority as dean to create robust internship and professional development programs that would empower students to apply their education to meaningful careers. These strategies helped us go from nearly half of our recent graduates struggling to find opportunities to 98% of the class of 2022 receiving an offer for a post-graduation opportunity. 

During this transformation, we’ve found three principles to be particularly important. While each institution is different, my hope is that all liberal arts colleges can benefit from our method.

Create internships instead of finding internships

Internships are one of the best investments that colleges can make to improve student success. A study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers found that students with two or more internships on their resumes are more likely to secure full-time jobs after graduation compared to students who never completed an internship. 

To help our students secure these opportunities, the University of Chicago partnered with employers to create a formal university internship program. The Jeff Metcalf Internship Program provides project-based, paid internships in a variety of industries, professions, research settings and locations. In many cases, we have worked with donors to create completely new internship opportunities at their companies. This ultimately benefits the employer as well as our students.

 Over the past 25 years, the Metcalf Program has grown from a small pilot with only a handful of internships to an initiative that offers over 4,200 paid internships each year. 

 The Metcalf Program is especially critical for students pursuing careers in industries and professions where employers often do not have formal recruiting programs, such as the arts, education and nonprofits.   

Short-term experiences can have a big impact

When students apply for internships, many find themselves caught in a catch-22. They need internships on their resume to compete for full-time jobs, but many internships require students to have prior experience.

To help students escape this trap, colleges should offer noncompetitive pre-internship advising programs. For example, the University of Chicago provides a job shadowing program that matches students with alumni hosts for one- to five-day experiences. Students visit their hosts’ workplaces, observe their daily projects, and receive career advice from their colleagues.