What does it really mean to prepare students for the world of work?
Too often, conversations about the value of higher education focus on whether graduates get jobs and how much they earn. Our new white paper, Beyond Job Readiness: Findings from the Good Work Value Alignment Study, asks a broader question: How well does postsecondary education prepare people not only to obtain work, but to do good work?
Drawing on surveys, interviews, and focus groups with students and employers across Healthcare, Information Technology, and Architecture/Construction, we explore what good work requires, where students and employers see gaps in preparation, and what colleges and employers might do differently. Across the study, one message emerged clearly: technical expertise matters, but doing good work also requires judgment, communication, ethics, adaptability, collaboration, continued learning, and responsibility to others.
The white paper also considers the critical role of experiential learning and argues for thinking about the transition from education to employment as a shared developmental space—one in which colleges and employers both have a role to play.
Read the full white paper, Beyond Job Readiness, to explore the findings and their implications for how we think about credential value, career readiness, and preparation for good work.
