Great New Year’s resolutions should be measurable and accomplishable. Here are 6 that any college or university can achieve in 2025 to ensure they remain relevant for decades to come:
1. Measure and report the % of students who have a good job waiting for them upon graduation.
(Measure 100% of the cohort at the time of graduation, not through a poor response-rate survey sent to graduates 6 months later. Ask the tough, qualifying questions that help determine the quality of the job: How much does it pay? Does it require a degree? Is it in the student’s desired field or industry?)
2. Measure and report the % of students who completed an internship, co-op, work placement or other industry-immersive experience.
(Report this percentage by year of study and by graduating cohort. Include the data broken out by Pell eligibility. Report the percentage paid and unpaid.)
3. Allow all work-study students to gain academic credit for their work study position by connecting their job to an academic reflective assignment reviewed by their manager and academic advisor.
(Despite being available for decades, work study programs have never been systematically connected to a student’s academic experience.)
4. Report the student-to-career-advisor ratio.
(Most universities proudly report their student-to-faculty ratio. This is an easy addition.)
5. Measure and report the % of alumni who engage in a formal mentoring program with current students and/or provide an internship or industry-immersive experience for students.
(Universities already measure the percentage of alumni donors – and have built substantial fundraising apparatuses to do so. This is an achievable extension of existing systems and resources.)
6. Launch a paid externship program for faculty to gain industry-immersive experience as a new type of sabbatical option.
(For faculty without recent experience outside of academia, increasing their exposure to a variety of industries will help improve the relevance of curricula.)