Why Career Readiness Must Be Higher Education’s Core Measure of Success

In many universities, career services are often treated as a stop on the way out, something students turn to only when graduation is near. But the job market that students face today demands more. Career readiness is becoming the clearest measure of higher education’s value.

That was the focus of my conversation with Christine Y. Cruzvergara on Tech in EdTech. As one of the voices shaping higher education strategy, she pointed to a critical shift. Our discussion highlighted a growing reality: preparing students for meaningful careers has to sit at the center of the university experience.

Reframing Career Services: Core Student Success Function

Career readiness has to be part of the student experience from the beginning. As Christine put it in our conversation:

“Career services are often underestimated. Institutions think of them as transactional, but the real opportunity is to embed career readiness across a student’s entire journey.”

That line gets to the heart of the issue. Too often, universities position career services as peripheral. In reality, they are one of the most direct bridges between education and employability.

If leaders want to protect both student success and institutional credibility, career development can’t sit on the sidelines. It needs to be built into advising, teaching, and the way higher education defines its value.

Shifting Priorities for Leaders and Learners

Career readiness today depends on both institutional leadership and student expectations.

For universities, this means elevating career services from a peripheral office to a strategic partner. They need to position leaders who can:

• Read employer trends
• Influence academic planning
• Sit at the cabinet level to shape strategy

For students, the priorities are shifting too:

• Stability and secure employers rank above prestige
• Benefits matter earlier in their careers than before
• Work-life balance is non-negotiable, even if it means choosing smaller cities or lower salaries

Recent data from Handshake underscores why these shifts matter. Jobs are down 15% year-over-year, while applications are up 30%. At the same time, 62% of seniors worry about AI’s impact on their careers, and more than half regret not using career services earlier. The message is clear: universities must act now and embed career education across the student journey.

Reading Between the Numbers: What the Workforce Is Demanding

The conversation isn’t just about how campuses see career services. It’s also about how the job market itself is shifting in ways students and institutions can’t ignore.

Christine pointed to data from recent graduation reports that reveal something deeper than headline employment rates:

“Students are navigating a market where hybrid roles, remote expectations, and emerging fields like AI are shaping decisions in real time.”  She noted.

That reality creates a tension for universities. Curricula and program structures move slowly, but the workforce moves fast. Students are making choices based on signals they get from employers today, not what’s in a course catalog designed years ago.

Key Takeaways for the Higher Ed Leaders

For higher ed leaders, the takeaways are clear:

• Building flexibility into curricula so programs can adapt as industries evolve.
• Embedding work-based learning early in the student journey, not just at the end.
• Making career connections visible, so students see how coursework links to real opportunities after graduation.

This means aligning programs with workforce realities is more important than simply adding new majors or certificates. And among all these workforce shifts, one factor looms largest: AI is reshaping both how students see their futures and how employers define the skills they need.

Making Sense of AI and Student Sentiment

The biggest tension students face today is uncertainty. They’re unsure whether AI will create new opportunities or take away the jobs they’re preparing for. Christine captured it well:

“Students are excited, but they’re also nervous. They’re trying to figure out where AI will complement their skills and where it might replace them.”

For higher ed leaders, the path forward is balance. That means:

• Acknowledge student anxiety instead of dismissing it.
• Build AI literacy into programs so students learn how it affects industries.
• Emphasize human strengths, such as judgment, collaboration, and adaptability, that AI cannot replace.

The goal isn’t to chase every new tool, but to prepare students to use AI thoughtfully in whatever career path they pursue. And this is exactly where career services come back into focus: they are the part of campus best positioned to connect new technologies, workforce realities, and student preparation into one continuous journey.

Redefining the Role of Career Services on Campus

To drive student success, career services need to be reimagined as a core function of the university experience. That means moving:

• From complexity to ease
• From one-off events to embedded support
• From peripheral to central

The real opportunity lies in rethinking how career services operate.

Redefined career services become the lens through which universities can respond to shifting workforce realities. That includes new skills, AI-driven changes, and evolving student expectations. To see why this matters, we have to look at how the workforce itself is changing.

Aligning Higher Education with Workforce Realities

Graduates today are stepping into a job market very different from even a few years ago. From my conversation with Christine, three pressures stood out that every university leader should keep in mind:

• Hybrid and Flexible Work: Students expect workplaces that allow flexibility, and they look to institutions for guidance on how to prepare for these models.
• The Rise of AI: Student sentiment is split; some are eager to explore new possibilities, while others feel anxious about being left behind.
• Regional and Disciplinary Gaps: The realities for a marketing major in one state look very different from a computer science graduate in another.

Career services need to translate these shifting realities into guidance. Students need help to connect coursework, skills, and career pathways earlier and more effectively.

The Future of Career Readiness in Higher Education

What I took away from my conversation with Christine is simple: career readiness can’t sit on the sidelines. It has to be part of how higher education defines its value.

The true measure of success is no longer just the diploma, but whether graduates leave with the skills and confidence to thrive in a shifting job market. Institutions that embrace this shift will not only serve their students better, they’ll also strengthen the case for higher education itself.