Employers are increasingly requiring a bachelor's degree for jobs that did not used to demand one. By 2020, 65 percent of all jobs in the U.S. economy will require postsecondary education and training beyond high school, according to a study by the Center of Education and the Workforce at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute. But how well are colleges preparing students for the workforce?
Forty percent of graduates lack the complex reasoning skills necessary for white-collar jobs, according to the study, which relied on the results of a test of workplace readiness called the Collegiate Learning Assessment Plus, or CLA+. Designed by the Council for Aid to Education, the CLA+ assesses intellectual gains made between freshman and senior year. Instead of measuring student development through content-specific knowledge, the CLA+ evaluates students on their critical thinking and written-communication skills. Graduating students may send their CLA+ results to potential employers to prove work readiness. CLA+ also enables institutions to evaluate their effectiveness in preparing graduates for the workforce. The test was administered at 169 colleges and universities in 2013 and 2014 to almost 32,000 students.
The forty percent of students who did not score at the 'Proficient Mastery' level could not distinguish the quality of evidence in building an argument and interpret quantitative data.
“ACT research on workforce readiness would support these findings as well," said Steve Kappler, Vice President of Brand Experience at ACT. "It shows the continued disconnect between what employers want and what is happening in higher education.”
“Beyond academic preparedness, ACT research shows that there are other critical factors that lead to success in the workplace," Kappler said. "Many items play a role in success, things like motivation, discipline, ethics, or something as simple as showing up to work on time and consistently coupled with cross-cutting capabilities such as critical thinking and collaborative problem solving, and information and technology skills. All of these items together with academic ability or content knowledge specific to the position serve to create a more well-rounded picture and indicator of who will succeed in the workplace.”
Kappler will be presenting ACT's College Choice Report during the AACRAO Annual Meeting in Baltimore, MD. The session will focus on student persistence within majors between the first and second year of college, changes in interest-major fit among students who changed majors, and the relationship between interest-major fit and student persistence.
Join us in Baltimore, MD, for AACRAO's 101st Annual Meeting: "Driving Student Success Initiatives in Higher Education."