The graduate employment rate is a measure that is often independently cited by PSE institutions based on the institution’s own measures, methods, and exemplary experiences, but it is not a common metric in PBF programs. Across the established PBF programs, Florida’s PBF program’s Percent of Bachelor’s Graduates Enrolled or Employed (earning $25,000+) in the nation metric is the closest metric to SMA3’s graduate employment rate in a related field.
In the United States
In Florida’s PBF program, the data source is the national Wage Interchange System, which is a data-sharing agreement among individual state unemployment insurance agencies to share wage data for individuals whose employers pay unemployment insurance (State University System of Florida, 2019). Missouri measures students that are employed or volunteering more than part-time, or serving in the military, while not making a distinction if the field the former student is employed in is related to their area of study or not. Wisconsin has a metric that includes employment in target sectors such as STEM.
In Ontario
Ontario’s PSE sector is already collecting these data in the form of the Ontario University Graduate Survey (OUGS), which is conducted annually by the MCU with support from Ontario universities. Each undergraduate cohort is surveyed two years after graduation. The survey collects data on the employment rates and experiences of graduated students from undergraduate programs, both six months and two years after graduation.
In Ontario, the graduate employment rate in a related field metric is a measure of the “proportion of graduates of bachelor or first professional degree programs employed full-time who consider their jobs either ‘closely’ or ‘somewhat’ related to the skills they developed in their university program, two years after graduation” (MTCU, 2019).
Employment as a measure
Employment measures are clearly linked to professional programs and disciplines because those programs largely define themselves by the professions they study; such an explicit linkage is not available to most humanities or less-applied fields.
This metric could be interpreted as privileging professional and applied disciplines over others. The humanities are familiar with this perception, and there are many arguments for the broader value of a humanities or liberal arts-based education that rely on a more sophisticated understanding of how education relates to employment (Lutz, 1979; Moro, 2018). It is difficult to unequivocally conclude that an employment-based metric discriminates against the humanities without denying the essential skills argument for the humanities that former associate dean of humanities at McMaster University Dr. Anna Moro and many others have made.
Tactically, Universities and Colleges should clearly communicate how broadly applicable their degree or certificate can be applied to their employment in the interest of influencing graduates’ responses to the OUGS.
This metric includes the assumption of student degree completion (or at least some positive form of completion through certificates and related programs) underpinning the subsequent employment. Most established PBF programs simply consider five or six-year graduation rate a suitable metric of student success, which SMA3 also includes.
It’s a better measure of what you did before PSE
As a measure of ultimate positive student outcomes, this metric has the potential to incentivize institutions to increase their selectivity in the admissions process and modify university financial aid practices to preferentially recruit well-prepared students. This is a theme of many SMA3 metrics (Graduate Employment Earnings and Graduation Rate).
Students with favourable pre-admission socioeconomic conditions have proven to possess an academic advantage that improves related PBF metric results. This resulting admissions selection incentive could be twice as influential with this PBF metric (thrice with the graduate employment earnings metric). Students with high socioeconomic status typically enjoy expanded opportunities and less restrictions that could impede their academic performance, which literature has suggested results in better graduation rates (Dougherty, 2016; Kelchen & Stedrak, 2016; Umbricht et al., 2017; Zhang, 2009). Similarly, these same students are also more likely to have access to better social networks and employment opportunities.
Many other PBF programs have included metrics related to access, to improve access goals and mitigate this selectivity incentive related to student performance outcomes (in the US it’s often students with Pell Grants).
Access goals were part of Weingarten and Deller’s original goals for a differentiated PSE system (2010).
Anti-access
Without the mitigations against anti-access selectivity found in established PBF programs this metric has the potential to do twice the harm to student access goals while being generally redundant to the established graduation rate metric and possibly the similarly untested year 3+ metric graduate employment earnings (each discussed in their own section).
Implementation of the graduate employment rate in a related field metric
01. Graduate employment rate in a related field
Across the five years of SMA3, the average weight given to the graduate employment in a related field metric is 12% in the first year and 8% in the subsequent years, the most often allocated weight in the first year was 10%, 15% in the second year, and the minimum of 5% in the subsequent years.
The University of Waterloo constantly allocates the maximum percentage available to this metric: 30% in the first year and 25% in the subsequent years. Within the SMA3 framework, a high weighting would suggest that the University of Waterloo is expecting this measure to be consistent for its graduates or an area of growth, even more than graduation rate, at 15% then 10%. From 2022–23 and onwards, 13 universities weighted the graduate employment in a related field metric at 5%, the lowest weight allowed.
The institutional narrative that accompanies each metric provides an institutional commentary on the subject; some choose to describe related programs and initiatives, or efforts to sustain each metric, or how the targets set in the SMA for a particular metric align to existing goals in existing institutional strategic documents.
For this metric, most institutions described existing programs and university services that support the graduate employment in a related field metric, often with evidence of past success. The most evidence of differentiation between institutions came in the specific existing programs and discipline-related services each choose to highlight, reflecting distinctive localities, such as Algoma’s Sault Ste. Marie and Brampton campuses, or the specific professional disciplines that are taught at comprehensive universities. Some institutions such as Laurentian, Nipissing, Laurier, Queen’s, and Waterloo have made specific mention of past results in the OUGS, with Waterloo joining McMaster and the University of Toronto in referring to performance in international surveys and rankings such as the Times Higher Education and Quacquarelli Symonds global employability rankings. Most narratives cite past performance, strategic plans and programs and services as sufficient evidence that the institution will meet its target.
Only the University of Windsor offered a distinctly more tactical four-point “Next Steps” sub-section in its narrative. The University of Windsor’s first next step is to “increase student awareness of transferable skill development through expanded and coordinated approach to portfolio development and co-curricular transcripts” (University of Windsor & Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities, 2020, p. 9).
The other three bullets’ growth-related goals and the initial awareness-related goal will serve University of Windsor students well in their studies and after graduation, but perhaps most importantly, this step will make students better informed about their transferable skills when they respond to the OUGS and based on that better understanding attribute their field of education more broadly in relation to their current employment.
Dougherty, Kevin James. Performance Funding for Higher Education. Book Collections on Project MUSE. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016.
Kelchen, Robert, and Luke J. Stedrak. “Does Performance-Based Funding Affect Colleges’ Financial Priorities?” Journal of Education Finance 41, no. 3 (2016): 302–21. https://doi.org/10.1353/jef.2016.0006.
Lutz, Gene M. “Employment and a Liberal Arts Undergraduate Education in Sociology.” Teaching Sociology 6, no. 4 (1979): 373–90. https://doi.org/10.2307/1317225.
Moro, Anna. “How a Humanities Degree Will Serve You in a Disruptive Economy.” The Conversation, June 5, 2018. http://theconversation.com/how-a-humanities-degree-will-serve-you-in-a-disruptive-economy-97530.
Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities. “Ontario’s Postsecondary Education System Performance/Outcomes Based Funding – Technical Manual.” Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities, September 2019. http://www.uwindsor.ca/strategic-mandate-agreement/sites/uwindsor.ca.strategic-mandate-agreement/files/performance_outcomes-based_funding_technical_manual_-_v1.0_-_final_september_419_en.pdf.
State University System of Florida. “Board of Governors’ Performance Funding Model (10 Metrics) Questions and Answers,” June 2019. https://www.flbog.edu/wp-content/uploads/PBF-FAQs-10_metric_model-June2019.pdf.
Umbricht, Mark R., Frank Fernandez, and Justin C. Ortagus. “An Examination of the (Un)Intended Consequences of Performance Funding in Higher Education.” Educational Policy 31, no. 5 (July 1, 2017): 643–73. https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904815614398.
University of Windsor, and Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities. “2020-2025 Strategic Mandate Agreement: University of Windsor [PDF],” 2020. https://www.uwindsor.ca/president/sites/uwindsor.ca.president/files/university_of_windsor_-_sma3_agreement_-_august_31_2020.pdf.
Weingarten, Harvey P, and Fiona Deller. “The Benefits of Greater Differentiation of Ontario’s University Sector,” October 26, 2010. https://heqco.ca/pub/the-benefits-of-greater-differentiation-of-ontarios-university-sector/.
Zhang, Liang. “Does State Funding Affect Graduation Rates at Public Four-Year Colleges and Universities?” Educational Policy 23, no. 5 (2009): 714–31. https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904808321270.
