Since the 1990s, UK government policy has sought to increase access to higher education, with a plan to improve social mobility. However, enhancing the employability prospects for all has proven difficult to achieve through widening participation alone. This research explores this paradox, via the experiences of first-in-family undergraduates as…

Both businesses and recent college graduates in the United States attribute the lack of soft skills in recent college graduates to the colleges' inability to prepare students for the workforce. This article explores the literature on social capital, human capital and social learning theory, offering an alternative hypothesis for why recent…

The low employment rates of individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) are a major concern. In 2011 only 34% of adults with ID were employed compared to 76% of adults without disabilities (Siperstein, Parker, & Drascher, 2013). Higher educational attainment is associated with higher employment rates for students with ID (Smith, Grigal,…

Purpose: This research moves beyond a focus on employability skills and explores student perceptions of preparedness for graduate life in a more holistic manner. Design/methodology/approach: Final-year business students were asked to outline their concerns regarding graduate life and the personal and professional challenges anticipated in their…

Purpose: In the context of far-reaching changes in higher education and the labour market, there has been extensive discussion on what constitutes graduate employability and what shapes graduates' labour market outcomes. Many of these discussions are based on skills-centred approaches and related supply-side logic. The purpose of this paper is to…

We investigated whether a set of indicators of the employability dimensions proposed by Fugate, Kinicki, and Asforth (i.e., career identity, personal adaptability, and human and social capital) are related to university graduates' employment status and five indicators of the quality of their jobs (pay, hierarchical level, vertical and horizontal…

As undergraduate degrees have become increasingly common and their relative value has declined, employers increasingly look for evidence other than human capital that can distinguish one candidate from another. Both social and personal capital are important in this respect, but also create disadvantages for university graduates from less…

Work experience placements are mandatory in the UK for all young people aged 16-18 in education, and their employability effects and associated wage premia are well noted in the literature. Through Bourdieu's lens, this article analyses and conceptualises a unique data set of reflective testimonies submitted in response to a YouGov survey of over…

Data show that educated workers earn higher wages and are unemployed less often. Some researchers believe that education improves a worker's productivity (or "human capital"), making them more desirable on the job market, while others believe that it improves a worker's network (or "social capital"), giving them more…

People, organisations and governments invest in vocational education and training (VET) because of its positive outcomes, such as higher wages, improved productivity and economic growth. But VET also brings non-economic benefits, such as lower absenteeism and less crime. Research on VET's benefits has focused on specific relationships, such its…

This study assessed the nature of the relationship between earning advanced degrees and career outcomes such as salary, job satisfaction, social capital, and human capital among professionals in the parks and recreation field. The sample (n = 196) was drawn from parks and recreation agencies located in the United States. Agencies, excluding…

A significant research gap exists in our knowledge of how educational attainment affects wealth building and intergenerational wealth transfers among Latinos. Wealth includes earnings but is a much wider and more fundamental measure of economic mobility. The education-earnings-wealth relationship is explored by constructing estimates of social…

The U.S. military services send officers to graduate schools each year to pursue advanced degrees, primarily to fill billet requirements later. This can be costly, including such things as tuition, housing, and pay but also the opportunity cost of the officer not filling an operational billet. Participation in such a program incurs specific…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the perceptions of US MBA and specialist master's degree alumni to determine the influence that their degree program experiences had on subsequent perceptions of career success. Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected from 318 alumni MBA and specialist master's degree recipients from a…

This book argues that schools were a driving force in the formation of social, political, and financial capital during the market revolution and capitalist transition of the early republican era. Grounded in an intensive study of schooling in the Genesee Valley region of upstate New York, it traces early sources of funding and support for…