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This chapter draws on findings from a comparative, qualitative research project investigating the decision-making of different groups of English higher education students in central England as they graduated from a Russell group university (46 interviewees) and a Post-92 university (28 interviewees). Half of the students graduated in 2014 (lower tuition fees regime) and the other half graduated in 2015 (higher tuition fees regime). The students interviewed were sampled by socio-economic background, gender, degree subject/discipline and secondary school type. Semi-structured interviews were used to explore students’ future plans and perceptions of their future job prospects. Despite higher debt levels, the 2015 sample of Russell Group graduates from lower socio-economic backgrounds had a positive view of their labour market prospects and a high proportion had achieved either a graduate job or a place on a postgraduate course prior to graduation. This group had saved money whilst studying. The 2015 sample of Post-1992 University graduates (from both lower and average socio-economic backgrounds) were worried about their level of debt, future finances and labour market prospects. This chapter raises questions about whether a fairer university finance system, involving lower levels of debt for graduates from less advantaged backgrounds, might avoid some graduates’ transitions to adulthood being so strongly influenced by financial anxieties.

Purpose: Students’ transition from education to employment is influenced by factors like the length and calibre of their education, demography, labour market conditions, and the general state of the economy. Regardless of the economy, education systems should seek to ensure that students have the skills required for the labour market. This will help them better transition from school to work. This study examines the work skills that companies require for entry-level positions in Romania.

Need for Study: Previously, text analysis studies treated the job market only for the IT industry in Romania. To understand the demand-side opportunities and restrictions, assessing the employment opportunities for young people in the Romanian labour market is necessary.

Methodology: A text mining approach from 842 unstructured data of the existing job positions in October 2022 for fresh graduates or students is used in this chapter. The study uses data from LinkedIn job descriptions in the Romanian job market. The methodology involved is focused on text retrieval, text-pre-processing, word cloud analysis, network analysis, and topic modelling.

Findings: The empirical findings revealed that the most common words in job descriptions are experience, team, work, skills, development, knowledge, support, data, business, and software. The correlation network revealed that the most correlated pairs of words are gender–sexual–race–religion–origin–diversity–age–identity–orientation–colour–equal–marital.

Practical Implications: This study looked at the job market and used text analytics to extract a space of skill and qualification dimensions from job announcements relevant to the Romanian employment market instead of depending on subjective knowledge.

This chapter shares the experiences of two graduate students as they navigated higher education during the pandemic. Engaging in graduate study during the pandemic shaped their socialisation experiences, challenged their understanding of themselves as scholars and impacted their relationships with mentors. This chapter shares personal reflections of their experiences and explores their sense of professional identity and aspirations for the future.

This chapter outlines four specific challenges that graduates of higher education face as they transition from school to work in the new millennium: (1) The myth of a linear connection between studies and career options; (2) the purported gap between the skills and knowledge learned in school and the skills and knowledge needed in the workplace; (3) the challenge of preparing for multiple careers over a lifetime; (4) the need for lifelong learning. Learning how to transfer skills and knowledge across multiple contexts, and the ability for effective self-direction, are proposed as two important ways that job seekers themselves can effectively respond to these challenges. Higher education institutions are challenged to explicitly incorporate more reflection and other metacognitive practices into their curricula. They are also challenged to provide many (and varied) opportunities for students to transfer what they know and can do across multiple contexts, both in and outside of the classroom. Learners are encouraged to engage in greater self-direction of their academic and career trajectories and more fully understand how to create and find work by mobilizing their transferable skills in a variety of contexts, beyond those that are traditionally affiliated with their studies.

Much rhetoric around the construct of a work-ready graduate has focused on the technical abilities of students to fulfill the expectations of the future workplace. Efforts have been made to extend from the technical skills (e.g., skills in calculation for engineers) to include soft or behavioral skills (e.g., communication). However, within previous models of understanding of the work-ready graduate there has been little done to explore them as critical moral agents within the workplace. That is, whilst the focus has been on being work-ready, it is argued here that in current and future workplaces it is more important for university graduates to be profession-ready. Our understanding of the profession-ready graduate is characterized by the ability to demonstrate capacities in critical thinking and reflection, and to have an ability to navigate the ethical challenges and shape the organizational culture of the future workplace.

This chapter aims to explore a movement of thinking away from simply aspiring to develop work-ready graduates, expanding this understanding to argue for the development of profession-ready graduates. The chapter begins with an exploration of the debates around the characteristics of being work-ready, and through a consideration of two professional elements: professional identity and critical moral agency, argues for a reframing of work-readiness towards professional-readiness. The chapter then considers the role of work-integrated learning (WIL) in being able to support the development of the profession-ready graduate.

Purpose: This paper aims at studying the degree of equality of educational opportunity in the Italian university system.

Methodology: We build on the approaches developed by Peragine (2004, 2005) and Lefranc et al. (2006a, 2006b) and focus on the equality of educational opportunities for individuals of different social background. We propose different definitions of equality of opportunity in education. Then, we provide testable conditions with the aim of (i) testing for the existence of equality of opportunity (EOp) in a given distribution and (ii) ranking distributions on the basis of EOp. Definitions and conditions resort to standard stochastic conditions that are tested by using nonparametric tests developed by Beach and Davidson (1983) and Davidson and Duclos (2000).

Findings: Our empirical results show a strong family effect on the performances of students in the higher education and on the transition of graduates in the labor market. Moreover the inequality of opportunity turns out to be more severe in the South than in the regions of the North-Center.

Originality: This work contributes to the literature in three ways: first, it proposes a definition of equality of educational opportunities. Second, the paper develops a methodology in order to test for the existence of equality of opportunity in a given distribution and to rank distributions according to equality of opportunity. Third, we present empirical evidence on the degree of equality of educational opportunity in the Italian university system.

Morgan State University (Morgan) is a leading undergraduate institution for black science and engineering doctoral degree recipients. Morgan also is a leader in the production of black engineering degree recipients in the United States. This chapter provides a historic overview of the major programs with a tie to the impact on the institutional metrics, a discussion of the process for developing researchers in science and engineering, and alumni perspectives. The undergraduate research development models used in engineering at Morgan are compared and contrasted with the life sciences and physical sciences. The programs focus on developing communities of engineering practice and communities of science, thereby enhancing students’ self-efficacy and resilience, shaping disciplinary identity, and creating learning communities. These approaches are critical for the success of minority students and are supported by the social science literature. Best practices have been adopted at varying levels by the School of Engineering, the School of Computer Mathematics and Natural Science and the Behavioral Science departments that have netted these Ph.D. outcomes including multiyear mentored research, research training courses, and participation in professional meetings. Multiple approaches to student development, when matched with the disciplinary culture, are shown to result in national impact.