Sizable portions of U.S. community college students are finding that their schools are not equipping them with the knowledge to succeed after they graduate, according to recent findings from University of Texas at Austin’s 2023 Community College Survey of Student Engagement (CCCSE).
Dr. Linda García
How Clear Is Their Path: Guided Career Pathways and Community College Students – drawing from Spring 2023 survey results from 83,189 community college students in 199 colleges – examined the extent to which respondents felt their schools gave them sufficient information about in-demand jobs in their local areas and the requisite skills for, and earnings of, their chosen careers.
Most surveyed students (more than 90%) reported that they had already chosen a career path. But only about half (49%) said that their schooling at college had given them information about the skills they’ll need for the job, according to the report. In contrast, 18% said they had gotten very little information about the topic or none at all.
Researchers found that students with 30 or more credit hours under their belt – meaning more courses taken, more schooling received – were more likely to answer that their college coursework had equipped them with that knowledge.
The difference is more pronounced for those who had participated in internships or similar experiences. Seventy-one percent of students who had taken part in such activities said their coursework informed them about requisite skills, compared to the 44% of students without these experiences.
When it comes to knowing how much money they can make in their chosen career paths, almost a fifth of surveyed students (46%) responded “very little” or “not at all” to whether their college had helped them learn about their planned path’s average earnings.
Among students who had more often taken advantage of their school’s career counseling services, the biggest portion (44%) reported having received significant help in learning about average earnings. On the flip side, those who had never used these services most often reported either getting some (30%) or no (29%) earnings information.
