CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Two-thirds of recent University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign graduates who found employment after college have remained in the state of Illinois to work, according to the second annual analysis of information gleaned from survey responses and other reports.
Following the same methodology as the initial study a year ago, the team that developed Illini Success contacted all of the university’s bachelor’s degree graduates from the past three graduation periods, with the primary objective to document where Illinois students end up after graduation. The initial outcomes of 74 percent of recent graduates are represented in the report.
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“The results are informative in their own right, but more so given the protracted deliberations on public funding of our state universities,” said Chancellor Robert Jones. “This report is fodder both for the broader question of the impact of a world-class education and for the narrower question of the extent of our contributions to the state of Illinois and beyond.”
This year’s key findings include:
- Eighty-eight percent of graduates from all colleges reported securing a “first destination” – defined as employment (71 percent of that total), continued education (29 percent) or a volunteer position (less than a percent) – within six months of graduation.
- Sixty-six percent of employed graduates said their jobs were located in Illinois, with another 9 percent remaining in the Midwest outside of Illinois. Four percent reported employment in another country, encompassing 33 nations.
- Eighty-six percent of respondents participated in experiential learning during their studies, including internships, assistantships, student teaching and clinical experiences. Within that total number of experiential learning participants, the most popular choice was internships, at 59 percent; 39 percent of completed internships resulted in full-time job offers.
- The average salary for full-time employed graduates is $57,031, topped by $71,856 for the College of Engineering.
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“This truly is a campuswide endeavor,” said Julia Panke Makela, the associate director for assessment and research at The Career Center and the project lead for the Illini Success initiative. “It starts with building trust and participation among the graduates who take part in the survey, it requires contributions from staff and administrators across campus, and it follows through with diligent adherence to national standards and ethical guidelines.”
Gail Rooney, the associate dean of leadership and career development and the director of The Career Center, said the Illini Success findings will be compared with post-graduation benchmarks available from the National Association of Colleges and Employers.
“From what we’ve gathered, the experience of Illinois graduates has been quite favorable in comparison with the national averages,” Rooney said. “The NACE data for the period of six months past graduation will be available this summer, and we plan to share comparison data to Illinois’ graduate outcomes at that time.”
The report draws from the experiences of those who completed undergraduate degrees in August 2015, December 2015 and May 2016. The primary method of data collection was an online survey. Other information was provided by employers, the schools and colleges, or culled from career-oriented social media.
No personal information is included in the report. Outcomes are reported only for groups of 20 graduates or more.
Makela cautioned against the temptation to draw conclusions based on year-to-year comparisons, with only two years of Illini Success data in hand.
“Comparisons based on the first two years of data would be premature and not very constructive, but we are building toward a point where we will be able to explore trends and build inferences based on a more comprehensive research record,” she said.
Editor’s note: For more information, contact Julia Panke Makela, the associate director for assessment and research, The Career Center, 217-244-2457; jpmakela@illinois.edu
