Labor-market linkages among two-year college faculty and their impact on student perceptions, effort, and college persistence

This chapter contributes to a volume of work designed to provide up-to-date, high quality evidence of the effectiveness of the variety of programs, policies and institutions in the USA with the specific purpose of improving the transitions of young people from school to work. Two-year community colleges play a significant role in developing the US workforce, providing 'mid-skilled' workers through the sub-baccalaureate qualification. The responsiveness of these institutions to employers' skill needs is a key aspect of the labour market success of their students but there are indications that community colleges are not well attuned to the skill needs of employers. In this chapter, the authors examine the role of college-employer linkages in terms of institutional linkage activities, students' perceptions of the benefits of these linkages and student motivation and persistence. The research finds that there is an 'ad hoc' element to faculty attempts to forge labour market connections but there are institutional structures and practices that may affect the level of these attempts and even block them. These include resource constraints, particularly time, an institutional trend away from employing full-time teaching staff, and the practice of assigning contact with employers to one person or unit within the colleges. Student perceptions of the linkages significantly predict their increased efforts at school and reduce thoughts of dropping out.

The volume from which this chapter is taken is indexed at TD/TNC 90.324. Selected individual chapters are indexed from TD/TNC 90.325 to TD/TNC 90.331. Show less