Students want quality jobs, and expect that experience to start before they graduate.
Higher ed, government, and workforce leaders are discussing employability skills and work-based learning more than they ever have (at least, in my lifetime). So are students. After considering what I’ve learned at industry events like ASU+GSV, SXSW EDU, and the Horizons Summit alongside recent research, here are four observations you can use to develop, implement, and communicate work-integrated learning experiences to meet student and workforce needs.
Students get career, college, and life advice from peers on social media.
70% of young adults use social media to learn about careers, and it’s the top tool young adults use for self-discovery, despite a lack of encouragement from most adults and career navigators/counselors. Students talk about workforce skills when they talk to each other online about going to college—about 20% of these posts are about skills needed for jobs. They believe transferable skills are valuable to keep their career options open, particularly for those who don't know what they want to do in their future careers. Specifically, they talk about:
- Relationship building skills like networking, persuasive speaking, small group leadership
- Basic math and writing skills
- Study skills
- Interview skills
Forums are advice-seeking and experience-sharing platforms, and when students talk about needing workforce skills, they receive encouraging advice. Suggestions include using extra courses, academic services, and resources to gain employability skills to help them find a job after graduation. Students are also encouraged to develop practical critical thinking and social skills because, in the words of those giving advice, “a degree doesn't guarantee success.”
Prospective students prioritize internship experience.
When students think about preparing for a job, they prioritize internships—the most common form of workforce training discussed in online forums. When students make their college decision, they consider whether a campus provides them greater access to internship opportunities. Sometimes students interpret a rural campus as one without internship opportunities (which isn’t exactly true), and students consider if the campus gives them access to a connected network to find future internships and jobs. Another consideration is the value of an institution's reputation with employers or intern hiring managers.
However, students don't really know what happens in an internship or how to get one. So they use online forums to seek advice on obtaining an internship, leveraging it, securing a job after graduation, and exploring alternative careers outside their major.
This provides an opportunity for campuses to bridge the gap between current or recent interns, and prospective and first year students. Students who completed internships don't have the chance to tell the students coming behind them what it's like or how it helped them. This transition point is an excellent chance to engage recent interns to share their experiences directly with students or prospects to provide motivation and guidance in the peer-to-peer form students want.
Most colleges don’t effectively communicate the connection between curriculum, skill building, and careers.
When the connections between a college’s curriculum, employability skills, and careers aren’t clear, students think the burden is on them to build the skills and chart their path. Many colleges struggle to communicate these connections effectively. Here are two doing an excellent job.
Kettering University in Flint, Michigan. For 100 years Kettering has focused on work-integrated learning with a curriculum that rotates students between the classroom and co-op work placements in 12-week intervals. 98% of their students are employed after graduation, and the ongoing integration of students in the workforce produces valuable student feedback, enabling curriculum shifts to keep up with ever-changing employer needs.
Kettering is historically focused on STEM, but they recently launched the School of Foundational Studies, traditionally known as liberal arts. The core curriculum emphasizes a connected human-centered approach and integrates a STEM focus with early professional development and ethical decision making, preparing students to navigate complexity with intellectual agility. We know the liberal arts prepares students for the workforce, but Kettering is shifting the narrative and dropping the misunderstood phrase to put relevance and impact like ethical decision making and intellectual agility front and center.
Moravian University is another example. The medium-sized, private, religiously affiliated institution created Elevate as part of their undergraduate experience. It’s a career readiness digital badging system to help students clearly see the pathways for developing and demonstrating skills in communication, critical thinking leadership, and more. Elevate is part of Moravian’s distinctive and branded undergraduate student experience, which is a four-year pathway to a “successful future and a career you love.” The Elevate experience goes year-by-year and explains how students scaffold their experiences, learnings, and badges, and the support they get along the way.
Career navigation is a prevailing concept in this space right now, and is critical in empowering students to truly navigate their own careers rather than expect the university to take them from A to B. Students need to become their own career navigator and be confident upon graduation that they have the navigation skills. Integrated curriculum like those I’ve highlighted here achieve that outcome.
Work-based learning providers help you partner with students.
Some institutions have the capability to build a work-integrated learning curriculum with in-house resources, but others leverage partners to add various components to the student experience. Here are two organizations that do good work in this space—there are many more.
Riipen is a software platform connecting educators, learners, and employers to integrate short term, less than 8-week paid projects, into coursework. The software allows students to match with opportunities at real employers, often small- to medium-sized businesses who need the help from talent with an external perspective, a specific skill set, or maybe even from a particular generation. After matching, students work individually or in groups to complete an objective. As they work on the project and complete it, the employers offer feedback giving students the real world career learning experience. Many Riipen projects are integrated into courses by the faculty member, making the transition to work-based learning even smoother.
Education at Work connects students to resume-building, paying jobs at top national employers like Intuit or Discover to build durable skills and unlock career pathways within the organization. They assign students to portions of jobs that take over the functions of full-time entry level jobs, like a call center representative or an income tax assistant, and provide work arrangements that fit their schedule.
Students get an entry level job while they’re in college and they get paid. In some cases students have the opportunity to move up in the job, such as the tax assistant jobs at Intuit where the employer provides additional on-the-job education. By the time students leave their undergraduate experience, they might have progressed into their second- or third-level job.
Help students understand that work-integrated learning is more than an internship.
Colleges and universities have a timely opportunity to shift curriculum or messaging to resonate with student and employer needs and clarify to prospective students and their families how their education connects to a career, even if they don't know what that career might be. More recommendations are available in Campus Sonar’s social intelligence brief: The importance of transferable skills and work experience in college decision making.
This post originally appeared in Inside Higher Ed on November 21, 2025.