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This study aims to explore a specific case of the alleged mismatch between higher education and employability by investigating long-term work life outcomes for graduates from a small university college in Sweden, and the associations between these outcomes and the graduates’ social background, academic achievements and study approach in terms of labour market orientation and agency in studying.

The study is based on longitudinal data from initially 2,072 students from bachelor’s degree programmes in 2007–2012. They were surveyed continuously throughout the programmes and then in 2020. Classification and regression tree (CRT) analyses were conducted to identify which subgroups within the population based on the independent variables (e.g. students’ background and study orientation) that were associated with the dependent variables (work life outcomes).

Neither graduates’ social background nor their academic achievement and study approach was associated with employment rate or income. Some dimensions of high labour market orientation and agency in studying were positively associated with holding a senior position at work. Several aspects of high levels of agency and labour market orientation were positively associated with subjective work life outcomes, such as for example perceived mastery of work.

This study contributes to further understanding of alleged mismatches between higher education and employability by using longitudinal data from a university college in a country with low graduate unemployment rates and low earnings dispersions.

This article explores the concept of “heritage futures”, the role of heritage in managing relations between present and future societies. It assesses how thinking strategically about the future changes, complicates and contextualises practices of heritage. What might an attention to the future bring to work in heritage, and simultaneously, what challenges—both practical and ethical—arise?

This article takes the form of a conversation about the nature of heritage futures and how such a project may be implemented in both heritage practice and field research in heritage studies. The two authors are heritage scholars who integrate heritage futures questions into their research in different ways, and their conversation uncovers potentialities and difficulties in the heritage futures project.

The discussion covers the particular ethical issues that arise when the dimension of time is added to heritage research and practice, including questions of continuism, presentism and specificity. The conversation argues for the importance of considering the future in heritage studies and heritage practice and that this forms a key part of understanding how heritage may be part of building a sustainable present and future.

The future is an under-examined concept within heritage studies, even as heritage is often framed as something to be preserved “for future generations”. But what impact might it have on heritage practice to really consider what this means, beyond the platitude? This article suggests that heritage scholars and practitioners direct their attention to this often-neglected facet of heritage.