Gallup and Lumina found most employers expect degrees to keep their value in the AI era. Colleges now need to make it easy for those employers to help.
A Gallup and Lumina Foundation poll of more than 2,500 hiring decision makers, covered by Higher Ed Dive on October 20, found that 73 percent of employers expect degrees to be at least as important as they are today, and 80 percent prefer candidates with degrees even when a job does not require one. For colleges, that is encouraging. It is also a prompt. Employers who value the degree are the ones most likely to say yes to a partnership, if someone asks clearly.
Goodwill is not a plan. A menu of specific asks is.
Why a Menu Works
Employers are busy, and a general invitation to partner rarely produces action. A one-page menu does. It lists what the college would like, what the employer gets in return, and who to call. It also lets an employer choose a level of involvement that fits its size, which matters because the poll found preference for graduates rises from 62 percent at firms with fewer than 10 employees to 86 percent at the largest organizations.
What to Put on the Page
A good menu has five to seven items, from light to heavy. A short guest lecture or classroom visit. A tour of the workplace for a student group. A resume review or mock interview session. A paid internship or project. A seat on a program advisory board. A capstone project with a real business question. A hiring commitment for graduates of a specific program. Each item should say how much time it takes and what the college handles.
Make the first yes small, and the second yes comes easier.
Match the Menu to the Employer
Large employers value predictable pipelines and efficient recruiting, so offer a single contact and a calendar of events. Small employers value personal relationships and immediate help, so offer a student who can start a project next week. The poll’s industry differences matter too: business and professional services showed 37 percent expecting degrees to matter less, so employers there may want evidence of skills and AI fluency before they commit.
Show the AI-Ready Skills
Employers are also asking what graduates can do with new tools. Colleges can answer by documenting it. A capstone reviewed by an employer, a portfolio of work, or a short assessment shows that students can use AI tools responsibly and check the results. That evidence goes on the menu as something the employer can review and shape.
Keep Track and Say Thank You
A menu only works if someone follows through. Assign one owner, log every contact, and report back to employers on what their involvement produced. A brief note after each semester with the number of students reached and one story builds loyalty. It also gives the college evidence for trustees, donors, and accreditors.
Involve the Whole Campus
Employer partnerships work best when they are not limited to career services. Faculty know which employers visit their classrooms, athletics and student life staff know local sponsors, and alumni relations knows graduates in hiring roles. A short internal survey each year, asking departments which employers they already work with, usually turns up a surprising list and prevents duplicate outreach.
It also helps to publish a simple page on the college website for employers, with the menu, a contact name, and a form. Employers who find the page on their own are already interested, and a fast reply turns that interest into a first commitment.
A Word on the Data
The poll’s limits are worth stating. The coverage gives no margin of error or question wording, and the comparison with public confidence in higher education comes from an earlier poll the article does not identify. The authors themselves say only that employers do not, for now, appear to be turning away from the degree. A menu is a sensible response to that cautious good news.
For the full findings and a plan for turning employer confidence into partnerships, read College Leads’ analysis of the Gallup and Lumina employer poll. If you work with career services leaders, provosts, or enrollment teams and want to reach them, you can build a targeted higher education contact list here.
About the Author: Charlie Isham is the Founder and CEO of K12 Data, Inc., which operates K12 Data, College Leads, and K12 Talent. He has spent more than 15 years building education data infrastructure and has watched how schools, colleges, and the companies that serve them buy for over a decade. He is based in Encinitas, California.
About the Author
