Providing students with verifiable 21st-century skills and competencies has become increasingly more challenging for Higher Education Institutions (HEI). This study sought to investigate why institutional data from a college in the northeast reported lower levels of acquiring job- or work-related skills compared to other colleges in the system's…

Scholars debate the criticism higher education has received for not adequately preparing students for careers that reflect employer and industry needs and low job placement rates (Holzner, 2017; Monis, 2018; Niu et al., 2019). The skills desired for today's qualified applicants continue to change, and employers are experiencing difficulty finding…

The Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally (HOPE) scholarship marked a significant advancement in education by offering expanded opportunities for Georgia students earning a high school GPA of 3.00 or higher to attend a University System of Georgia (USG) institution. This quantitative study examined individuals who earned a bachelor's degree…

This research examines student understandings of the relationships between higher education and career since the implementation of the Gainful Employment Rule. The Gainful Employment Rule states that education and training programs lead to degrees or prepare students for "gainful employment" in an occupation (USDOE, 2014). Policymakers…

This qualitative study explores student skill preparedness for the work force through semi-structured interviews and focus groups with current college students, faculty members, and employers. Responses from study participants were transcribed, coded, and thematically organized into the following four categories of skills that employers seek in…

The literature indicates that some recent graduates of US colleges and universities are having difficulty obtaining jobs that satisfy salary and work environment expectations. While industries differ in focus, employers are similar with what they want in recently graduated individuals beginning their first full time job. Furthermore, the…

By 2020, the global need for information security professionals is expected to reach six million and the shortfall in meeting that need is expected to be over one and a half million. Not only is there a shortage of cybersecurity professionals but those who are graduates of a cybersecurity program are not adequately skilled to assume significant…

Employers of newly hired higher education graduates report their new workforce is not prepared. Further research was required to discover insights to the workforce readiness gap. This concurrent mixed methods study explored what competencies influenced employer's perceptions of the work-readiness of Information Systems (ISYS) undergraduate…

Globalization reflects a shift in the workforce development paradigm. This descriptive qualitative case study was conducted at a Midwestern university with 12 student participants and three faculty members from three engineering programs. The purpose of this body of work was to explore the participants' perceptions of globalization, and to…