Data from CGS’ Graduate Enrollment and Degrees: 2000 to 2010 was cited in “Helpful Tips on Managing College Finances from Cedar Ed Lending.” The piece notes that, “over 50% of students pursue education or business related degrees.”

The Washington Examiner Education section included a Data Sources article by Nathan Bell, CGS Director of Research and Policy Analysis, on “International Comparisons of Educational Attainment.”

The CGS-ETS Pathways Through Graduate School and Into Careers report has garnered press attention. An article in Inside Higher Ed quotes commission chair Patrick Osmer, Vice Provost, Graduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate School at The Ohio State University as well as commission member Ron Townsend, Executive Vice President for Global Laboratory Operations at Battelle Memorial Institute. The Chronicle of Higher Education also covered the report and includes quotes from Dr. Osmer as well as commission member James Wimbush, Dean, University Graduate School at Indiana University. Diverse Issues in Higher Education featured an article about the April 19th Legislative Forum on Pathways Through Graduate School and Into Careers which quotes several speakers, including Freeman Hrabowski, President of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Dwight Hutchins, Global Managing Director of Accenture, Kurt Landgraf, CEO of ETS, and Dr. Osmer. Additionally, EdWeek’s College Bound blog included a post about the report.

Additional coverage the week of April 23 included an article in ScienceInsider which quoted Debra Stewart, CGS President, and Patrick Osmer, Pathways Commission Chair and Vice Provost for Graduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate School at The Ohio State University. Additional coverage appeared in Science Careers, University World News, and U.S. News & World Report’s University Directory.

More recently, an opinion piece by CGS President, Debra Stewart, and ETS President & CEO, Kurt Landgraf was published by the Huffington Post on Thursday. Additionally, the report was featured in a Nature News Brief, and online articles at Onlinemba.com and the Society for Human Resources Management. Also, the university websites for two commission members, Jeff Gibeling, dean of Graduate Studies at the University of California, Davis, and James Wimbush, dean of the University Graduate School at Indiana University, also posted information about the Pathways initiative.

The Washington Examiner’s monthly Education section included a Data Sources article by Nathan Bell, CGS Director of Research and Policy Analysis on employment projections for those with graduate degrees.

The announcement that CGS had received funding from the Sloan and Teagle Foundations to launch a new Preparing Future Faculty program focused on Undergraduate Learning Assessment was noted in the Chronicle.

On April 3, CGS released Findings from the 2012 CGS International Graduate Admissions Survey, Phase I: Applications which has received coverage by the Wall Street Journal, Inside Higher Ed, the Chronicle, the Financial Times, Voice of America, The China Daily, and the Charleston Daily Mail.  Inside Higher Ed also did a follow up story focused on Chinese applications to education programs.

By 2020, 2.6 million new or replacement jobs will require an advanced degree. Yet a new report warns that the nation will not be able to tap graduate students with high-level knowledge and skills unless university, business, nonprofit and government sectors team more closely — and innovatively — than they do now.

The report, Pathways Through Graduate School and Into Careers, calls for such changes in graduate education’s link to the workforce. It also calls for greater collaboration from key stakeholders in higher education and business and recommends broadening graduate education to include the development of professional skills essential to students’ success. The report was produced by a commission of university and business leaders convened by the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) and Educational Testing Service (ETS).

“The nation’s capacity to thrive depends critically on our ability to out-innovate, out-create and out- think the world,” says Debra W. Stewart, President of CGS. “Our graduate schools are the place where high-potential people come together with talented faculty and develop the competencies to address the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century.”

Through in-depth interviews with employers, the report authors discovered that while employers  indicate they value the skills and expertise of people with graduate degrees, they would welcome an emphasis on business savvy and teamwork, communication and problem-solving skills. Employers also contend that more graduate students need to be taught to innovate, apply their content knowledge to other areas and think like entrepreneurs, the report shows.

“To date, there has been little research to identify whether graduate students understand the relationship between their studies and future career options,” says Cathy Wendler, co-author of the report and Principal Director of Research at ETS. “If we can illuminate career pathways, we will ensure that students have a map or framework within which to make informed choices, employers will understand key factors integral to employee and employer success and universities will be able to adapt and improve programs to better meet workforce demands.”

The findings and recommendations are targeted to three sectors: policymakers, universities and employers. For example, the report recommends that federal policymakers provide support for studies that help us understand career pathways for graduate students and that they also consider establishing a Professional Plus Program for graduate students on research assistantships that will help prepare  them for the variety of career options open to them.

“Higher earnings continue to be associated with advanced education levels,” says ETS President and CEO Kurt M. Landgraf. “A recent study showed that across the 15 fields examined, individuals with a graduate degree earned an average of 38.3 percent more than those with a bachelor’s degree in the same field. In addition, the overall unemployment rate for individuals who hold graduate degrees  traditionally has been lower than for those who hold an undergraduate degree. With such tangible economic benefits, why aren’t more students pursuing graduate school? Cost and family obligations are obvious reasons, but this report shows another major factor may be a lack of understanding of career options.”

The report also suggests that university officials should track career outcomes of their graduates; make stronger career counseling services available; connect graduate students with graduate alumni; broaden the focus of graduate education to include development of more professional skills; and build more opportunities for graduate school faculty and students to engage with industry, government and other sectors.

Finally, employers should enhance and expand collaborative relationships with their higher education counterparts; make strategic investments in graduate programs; provide additional internship and research opportunities for graduate students; offer sabbatical and research opportunities for graduate faculty; and provide financial assistance for employees wishing to pursue graduate studies.

Copies of Pathways Through Graduate School and Into Careers and additional information are available at www.pathwaysreport.org.

ETS Contact: Tom Ewing, 1-609-683-2803 — tewing@ets.org

CGS Contact: Julia Kent, 1-202-461-3874 — jkent@cgs.nche.edu

Contact:
Belle Woods
bwoods@cgs.nche.edu
(202) 223-3791

Washington, D.C.  ̶  The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) has been awarded grants from the Alfred P. Sloan and Teagle Foundations for a new initiative to address the need for greater faculty expertise and engagement in the assessment of undergraduate student learning. CGS will collaborate with five U.S. universities to develop model projects for integrating learning assessment for the improvement of teaching into programs that prepare graduate students for faculty careers. 

The project funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation will support work in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and economics, while the grant from the Teagle Foundation will support work in the humanities and qualitative social sciences. In STEM fields, it can be difficult to identify when undergraduate students are most at risk of departing from a baccalaureate degree path. A focus of this project will be providing faculty with tools to identify when students are at risk in introductory, “gateway” courses through effective learning assessment strategies and with models for responding through enhanced teaching. In the humanities and social sciences, one of the main challenges is ensuring that assessment strategies reflect faculty input on forms of knowledge specific to their disciplines. In response to this challenge, the project will foster greater coordination between graduate schools, experts in teaching and learning assessment, and faculty in the disciplines.

“While U.S. graduate education is considered the best in the world, its vital role in preparing faculty with an understanding of learning assessment is often overlooked,” said CGS President Debra W. Stewart.  She continued, “In order to improve undergraduate learning, we need to integrate these skills into the training of tomorrow’s faculty.”  

“This project offers an opportunity to strengthen faculty engagement in learning assessment by embedding these skills into programs that prepare future faculty. CGS’s strong track record in graduate education reform makes it a natural partner for Teagle in our efforts to improve the quality of higher education by enhancing graduate student preparation for teaching careers,” said Teagle Foundation Vice President Donna Heiland. 

“If we want to increase the quality of higher education in STEM disciplines and economics, we need to do a better job of minimizing the obstacles students encounter in the early stages of baccalaureate study.  Faculty on the front line are ideally positioned to make science pathways more attractive and science education more effective if they have developed strategies to assess student learning outcomes and to use the data intentionally to improve their teaching; developing such expertise during their graduate training will mean they begin their teaching careers with this important frame in mind,” said  Elizabeth S. Boylan, Program Director of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. 

During the three-year project, CGS will foster a range of activities at the five participating campuses, and host best practice discussions nationally, to enhance skills and understanding of future faculty in the assessment of student learning and the effective use of student learning outcomes. CGS has supported the development of graduate students aspiring to faculty careers since its involvement in promoting the diffusion of Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) programs (1993-2003), and will also leverage this network of PFF institutions to foster broader adoption of best practices that emerge from the five funded pilot projects.

Nature magazine included a brief describing the CGS Doctoral Initiative on Minority Attrition and Completion (DIMAC) which quoted Robert Sowell, CGS Vice President for Programs and Operations.  CGS announced the selection of the 21 institutional partners on March 15.

A Science Careers article on the Professional Science Master’s (PSM) degree documented career outcomes for PSM graduates from several different programs. The article included quotes from Sally Francis, CGS Senior Scholar in Residence and Co-Director, Professional Science Master's Initiatives and Nathan Bell, CGS Director of Research and Policy Analysis.