The old-fashioned college degree left many students with a big load of debt but little or nothing in the way of job preparation. Some colleges are figuring out how to partner with businesses in co-op programs that enable students to combine their coursework with actual work, and this appears to produce significant benefits.

In today’s Martin Center article, Braden Colegrove and Chloe Nguyen write: 

Through the co-op model, students are given the opportunity to spend some semesters working for a company and others in class. A student applies to a co-op program at a large, respected corporation, such as BlackRock, JP Morgan, Exelon, Comcast, and others, and then interviews as if he or she were applying for a real job or internship. Once accepted, he or she begins working at that company at a predetermined time in the academic year.

Schools that have gone in big for co-ops have very high placement rates for their grads. One of them is Drexel, about which Colegrove and Nguyen write:

As for the years after graduation, 96 percent of Drexel alumni report being happy with their job. The authors of this article theorize that Drexel students, having worked at two or three different companies with differing roles as part of their education, know what firms and tasks best suit them and thus apply to post-college jobs wisely.

College officials should take note of this useful trend.