Parents: It just went from bad to worse.

Just this week I received an email from a parent about her son’s alma mater. (I’m purposely omitting the name of the school but it is one of the top brand-name universities.) The email she forwarded announced the launch of a fundraising effort, “…this University-wide fundraising effort will support the most ambitious strategic plan (I read the plan in detail) in our history. As it is successfully implemented, the strategic plan will amplify the University’s global impact over the next decade and beyond — in everything from breakthrough research discoveries to innovations in creative expression to preparing the global leaders of tomorrow. The goal is to raise $3.75 billion (yes, that’s a B) in philanthropic investments across all of our schools and units to fund the initiatives of our strategic plan.” 
This parent asked me, “so where is all the $$$ tuition money I’m paying going?”

I didn’t have to ponder her question for too long. Because along with her email came another, reporting the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) Current Benchmarks.

Career Services *

Among responding career centers:

• 84 percent have centralized operations.
• 98 percent offer career counseling by appointment; 81 percent allow “drop-in” counseling.
• 90 percent offer career fairs.
• 52 percent sponsor specialized career fairs.
• Respondents average four career fairs each academic year.
• Other commonly offered services include on-campus interviewing, career workshops, work/study programs, in-office student employment, career assessment tools, and career resources libraries.
• Only 20 percent offer credential files services.
• 71 percent conduct first-destination surveys at graduation; 69 percent conduct a post-graduation, follow-up survey.
• The average ratio of students to career services personnel is 2,370 to 1.
• The average salary for a director is $70,000.
• More than 75 percent of career services offices rely on institutional funding for their annual budgets.
• Few career services offices charge fees to students.
• Career centers charge employers an average $125 to $225 to participate in a career fair.
• About 22 percent of offices have a partnership program with employers.
• More than half of respondents conducted an operations assessment within the past five years.
• 98 percent of career services offices have an online job posting system.

STUNNING! The average ratio of students to career services personnel is 2,370 to 1. In its 2012 survey, NACE reported the ratio to be 1,645 to 1. Bad to worse. Much worse.

In reporting the NACE survey, on one of the career services professional groups on LinkedIn, the contributor said, “Imagine if your child's first grade class had 1,889 students - for one teacher.” To that a director of a university career center responded, “Kids Stuff! We have 3,500 to 1!

It’s apparent your tuition dollars are not used to support career service departments, which means, universities are not supporting students—your children in their job searches. It’s incredulous that:

1.    Academia is so out-of-touch with the challenges graduating seniors and recent grads face in finding a job, and how a job search is conducted today. I can say and defend this because I work with too many students who have had no success with their school’s career services center. From poorly written resumes to an inability to answer the first interview question, tell me about yourself to how to follow up proactively and appropriately.

2.    As parents, you are not up-in-arms and doing something about this. The parents I speak with have learned the hard way that their children are not getting what they need to transition into the professional workplace from their schools.

For the parent who wrote me, her son received his job offer, will start right after graduation, and both parent and student feel happy and relieved. What about all the other parents of graduating seniors?

* Source: NACE 2013-14 Career Services Benchmark Survey for Colleges and Universities