Using the Collegiate Learning Assessment to Address the College-to-Career Space

Abstract

Issues in higher education, such as the rising cost of education, career readiness, and increases in the achievement gap have led to a movement toward accountability in higher education. This chapter addresses the issues related to career readiness by highlighting an assessment tool, the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA), through two case studies. The first examines the college-to-career space by comparing different alternatives for predicting college success as measured by college GPA. The second addresses an identified market failure of highly qualified college graduates being overlooked for employment due to a matching problem. The chapter concludes with a proposal for a solution to this problem, namely a matching system.