Study Abroad Continues to Give Employment Edge to Recent College Graduates

  • 05/24/16

CHICAGO – IES Abroad, the leading not-for-profit study abroad and internships provider, recently announced results from its 2016 Career Outcomes survey.

Dedicated to developing global leaders, IES Abroad first set out to assess the impact of study abroad on its alumni’s employment outcomes in 2012, and the results were astounding. Ninety-seven percent of IES Abroad alumni who graduated from college between 2009 and 2011 had secured full-time employment within a year of graduating. In comparison, a 2012 study of the general U.S. population done by Rutgers University identified that only 49 percent of graduates from 2009-2011 had secured employment within a year of graduation. What’s more, the results showed that IES Abroad alumni who graduated between 2006 and 2011 earned, on average, $7,000 more in starting salaries than U.S. college graduates during this same period from the general population.

IES Abroad recently repeated the career outcomes study by surveying its alumni who graduated from 2012-2015. Of the 1,205 qualified respondents, IES Abroad alumni not only continue to boast higher full-time employment rates, lower unemployment rates, and higher starting salaries, but they’re finding jobs even faster than their peers from four years ago:

  • 73 percent of IES Abroad alumni who graduated from college between 2012 and 2015 secured their first job within two months or less of graduation, up from 67 percent of IES Abroad alumni who graduated during 2006-2011.
  • The median full-time starting salary of IES Abroad alumni has increased nearly 7 percent from the 2012 study to the present.
  • Six months following graduation, IES Abroad alumni who graduated in 2014 reported a full-time employment rate of 56.4 percent. This is 6 percent higher than the rate reported by the National Career Outcomes Report and nearly 4 percent higher than the rate reported by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) for 2014 graduates.
  • During that same year, 2014, while the national unemployment rate for young people with a bachelor’s degree was 6.7 percent, the unemployment rate for IES Abroad alumni was less than 5 percent.
  • Nearly 90 percent of IES Abroad alumni who applied to graduate school earned admission into their first or second graduate program.

Equally compelling were the results related to the long-term life skills and personal growth that come from participating in an IES Abroad program. More than 75 percent of IES Abroad alumni reported that their IES Abroad program experience had direct impact on their development of key employability traits, such as communication skills, adaptability, self-confidence, and cultural understanding.

To learn more about the research behind the career benefits of study abroad, visit www.IESabroad.org/career-benefits.

About IES Abroad
IES Abroad is a global, not-for-profit academic consortium that offers more than 120 study abroad programs, in 30+ international locations, to more than 5,700 U.S. college students annually. Founded in 1950, IES Abroad is a leader in the field of education abroad programming and has more than 240 prestigious U.S. college and university affiliates as a part of its Consortium. Learn more at www.IESabroad.org.

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