Recent alums far well after graduation, in job market

Many of the University's 24,000 undergraduate students come to the University in hopes that upon graduation their internationally recognized diploma will make them more marketable in the real world.

Are they right?

According to the Office of Budget and Planning they are.

In 1996, the budget office conducted a campuswide survey of graduates from all the University's undergraduate schools and colleges. Though the results of the survey have not been formally released, preliminary numbers reveal promising futures for most University graduates, Ruth Kallio, assistant director of the Office of Budget and Planning.

The Office of Budget and Planning found that two-thirds of University graduates were working full-time while 12 percent occupied part-time jobs. Four out of five survey respondents not reporting any form of employment cited continuing their education as their primary reason.

Overall, 96 percent of graduates were either employed, in school or both seven to nine months after graduation.

The survey was the first University sponsored follow up on graduates in recent years and no other surveys of its kind have been conducted since.

The Office of Career Planning and Placement hopes that in the future the University will compile yearly statistics on job and graduate school placement.

"We had hoped that it would be an annual survey, but so far that hasn't been the case," said Terri LaMarco, associate director of the Office of Career Planning and Placement.

But individual schools within the University gather information of this sort for their records. For example, the Engineering Career Resource Center tracks the job and salary offers of its bachelor's degree candidates.

According to their statistics for the class of 1999, the 95 graduates from the Electrical Engineering program were offered a total of 1,863 jobs.

The average salary offer for electrical engineering graduates was $45,114 for men and $45,492 for women.

Compared with other reputable colleges, the University fares quite well in graduate placement. Colorado College, a highly ranked, private liberal arts college in Colorado Springs, has similar statistics for its undergraduates.

Alumni Office officials said that at Colorado College 66.5 percent of those responding to a survey of the class of 1997 occupied full-time jobs six months after graduation, 22.5 percent of graduates held full-time temporary jobs and 11 percent responded they were in graduate school.

Of those reporting they were attending graduate school, 64 percent were full-time students.

Colorado College gathers statistics for its graduates on a regular basis.

09-24-99