February 2013 - PESC

FEB RUA RY 2 013
Th e STANDARD NEWS A ND C OM M ENTA RY ON T EC HNOL OGY & STA NDA RDS IN EDUCA T ION
probably not that different from what most
colleges are doing.
Pursuing Graduates Online
Students and families who look at placement rates
while choosing colleges may be confused. Colorado
College, for instance, reports that 53 percent of the
Class of 2012 is employed. Another small liberalarts
college, Colgate University, in upstate New
York, reports that 72 percent of the Class of 2011,
the most recent for which data are available, had
jobs in 2011.
At face value, Colgate's graduates seem more
successful. But the timing of the colleges' surveys
may explain the discrepancy. Colgate tracks
students for six months after they graduate, but
Colorado polls them during the rehearsal for
graduation ceremonies, a time when many are still
weighing their options.
"That most definitely has an effect," says Gretchen
Wardell, office coordinator at Colorado's career
center. "At grad practice each year, there are
dozens of kids waiting to hear back from jobs." The
college used to try tracking students for six months
after graduation, she says, but only 30 to 35
percent would respond.
Both Colorado and Colgate achieve high response
rates—above 80 percent—the former by tapping a
captive audience, the latter by pursuing graduates,
one by one.
Staff members in Colgate's career-services office
start collecting placement-rate data six months
after graduation by sending successive surveys to
each graduate's e-mail address. For those who do
not respond, officials look on LinkedIn, Facebook,
and other social-media sites to see if they can
figure out what the graduates are doing. The staff
members also ask professors, coaches, and others
on campus who may know where students ended
up. They stop only once they get information on 80
percent of graduates.
"It is painstaking and time-intensive, but that is
how we get a decent response rate," says Teresa
Olsen, interim director of Colgate's career center.
About a third of colleges had response rates above
75 percent in 2010, according to the National
Association of Colleges and Employers. But roughly
the same proportion posted rates of 50 percent or
less.
It's hard to know what an adequate response rate
is for the surveys, says Mark Schneider, vice
president at the American Institutes for Research:
"Until you find out what that selection bias is, a
good response rate is hard to gauge." But
especially when it drops below 50 percent, he
thinks that mostly successful graduates are
responding.
Underemployment Unknown
Even when job-placement surveys yield high
response rates, they can be fuzzy on what counts
as a job. Many colleges don't 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.
Kansas State University's placement rate for the
Class of 2011 was 92 percent, with 70 percent of
graduates employed and 22 percent continuing
their education.
But the data may include underemployment, says
Kerri Day Keller, director of career and
employment services at the university. She tries to
make sure that all graduates listed as employed are
in paid positions, but it is possible, she says, that
some unpaid ones slip in.
Kansas State doesn't track whether graduates have
jobs related to their degrees because that can be
subjective, says Ms. Keller. What about a history
major who works for the Boy Scouts, she says, or
an engineering major who moved to India to be an
American-accent trainer?
25 PESC UNLOC K ING T HE P OW ER OF DATA