New Career-Readiness Solution For College Admissions
As issues arise around unfair recruitment practices, forward-thinking colleges are offering a student-focused approach to recruitment. Dream2Career’s work-learn solution provides continuous improvement of the current recruitment process and adds information to help prospective students pick a career, then pick a major, and finally pick the school. This new admissions funnel deemphasizes the “brand” of the institution and focuses more on the needs and career aspirations of the student.
In the past, colleges focused on creating the most appealing learning environments to collectively attract the most students. These efforts included more sports teams, campus beautification, great cafeterias and dorms equipped with flat-screen TVs. For wealthy students, these campuses provide an excellent way to spend 4-6 years. Regretfully, this fun environment may be less than optimal for most college students. As the national tuition debt balloons to $1.5 trillion, most students find themselves struggling to pay back debt and finding that they have limited skills needed to fill local vacant positions. For this reason, colleges are switching their focus to career readiness and strengthening their networks with businesses.
Research conducted at Inside Higher Ed suggests that students who switch majors are more likely to graduate. Education is critically important to the success of society so this is a positive sign when more students are completing degrees. Unfortunately, 75 percent of students are changing majors at least once while in college. This high percentage of career pathway uncertainty prolongs students’ time in school. For this reason, we need to find better resources to help students figure out their career interests before they enroll in college.
At Dream2Career, our team of educators is currently working with admissions officers to promote specific majors that have a 92% or better placement rate upon graduation. The information supplied by the colleges is organized and promoted in K-12 schools. Our focus is not on pedigree or college reputation. Dream2Career focuses on helping colleges promote those programs that are best at serving communities and that are supplying talent for desperately needed high demand and emerging industries.
Dream2Career has one simple mission: To provide on-ramps for students where they can discover and prepare for dream careers before they waste time and money on the wrong training programs. Those schools who are interested in making sure students are gainfully employed upon graduation receive the greatest accolades from local businesses and from Dream2Career. Our research shows that the admissions offices who are shifting their focus to prospective students’ career aspirations are also seeing an increase in the quality and quantity of their applicant pool, not to mention increased retention rates.
It is not often when there is a chance to provide a win-win-win situation but by working together we can create the next generation workforce and help students prepare for sustainable dream careers. If you want to help, contact us and enrich the opportunities for students and help them learn about the places to train for meaningful careers.
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