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ERIC Number: EJ992934
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2012-Jul-16
Pages: 0
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0009-5982
EISSN: N/A
In Job-Placement Rates, Fuzzy Data
Sandoval, Timothy
Chronicle of Higher Education, Jul 2012
As colleges and lawmakers seek better data about the employment success of graduates, a lack of standardized tracking makes much of the information unreliable. Many colleges release placement rates based on scant information: More than a third of colleges' reported rates in 2010 were based on responses from half of their graduates or fewer, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. That raises the question of whether the results are skewed by greater participation among happily employed graduates. Some career and for-profit colleges, as well as law schools, have faced high-profile accusations of job-placement fraud, in the form of lawsuits and scrutiny from accreditors. Meanwhile, experts also question the reliability of some of the data that traditional undergraduate institutions release. Even when job-placement surveys yield high response rates, they can be fuzzy on what counts as a job. Many colleges do not ask graduates whether their jobs are related to their degrees or if they feel those jobs have career potential. Most colleges do not account for underemployment or know if a graduate is reporting an unpaid internship.
Chronicle of Higher Education. 1255 23rd Street NW Suite 700, Washington, DC 20037. Tel: 800-728-2803; Tel: 202-466-1000; Fax: 202-452-1033; e-mail: circulation@chronicle.com; Web site: http://chronicle.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A