One of the main reasons that people decide to go to college is to get a good job so that they can easily support themselves and possibly their families. This is why it is important to consider job placement rates after college. It is important for a college to have good placement rates after college. The higher the job placement rates from that college are the more likely you are to get a job after college. However, many schools calculate job placement rates differently so it is import to look at how each school phrases their placement rates. 

When looking at schools placement rates they always try to find a way that they can present the highest number. When looking at a few colleges some would say that the students were placed whereas others would say employed. I did some research because I wasn’t sure what the difference was. According to My College Guide, the phrase ‘“Placed’ often means that a student has either gotten a job or been accepted to graduate school” vs. the phrase employed which is “more specific and includes only students who have gotten a job, not students who are in graduate school” (college ). Some colleges have gone even more specific and report what percentage of students are employed in their field of study. In general a college will have higher employment rates if they are able to report employment rates in their field of study. This is important for me to look at because I don’t just want to be employed after college, but I also want to be using the stuff I learned in the four years that I went to college. 

A few more things to look into when looking at college job placement rates include the time period of the statistic and the method used to find these rates. When looking at the time period it is important to consider the time frame of the data. Most schools will use data such as within six months or within one year of graduation. In this case the colleges with a smaller time period probably have the better options. When looking into how colleges calculate their statistics you may be surprised that many colleges will have seemingly sketchy methods of collecting information.  Most schools will not disclose this information to their students as they are afraid that it might make them look bad. According to The Hechinger Report, many colleges use surveys handed out to their alumis and see who answers back. However, the people who are generally most likely to answer those surveys were people who were doing well. This results in skewed information. It is now hard for colleges to print completely accurate information because then their college will look worse than others and they will lose a lot of students. 

Based on what I learned, it seems like it may be important to look at job placement rates when looking at colleges. However, it is also important to pay special attention to how they word these statistics. Job placement rates are important but they shouldn’t be the major deciding factor in where you want to go.  

As a side note I found this project that tries to report more accurate job placement rates and outlooks. It may be a good website to look into. AIR

Works Cited 

 “College Measures.” American Institutes for Research, 15 Aug. 2019, http://www.air.org/project/college-measures.

Marcus, Jon, et al. “Placement Rates, Other Data Colleges Provide Consumers Are Often Alternative Facts.” The Hechinger Report, 7 Apr. 2019, hechingerreport.org/placement-rates-data-colleges-provide-consumers-often-alternative-facts/.

MyCollegeGuide.org. “College Job Placement Rates: What They Really Mean.” My College Guide, 24 Oct. 2019, mycollegeguide.org/blog/2014/02/college-job-placement-rates/.