Where you go to college may not matter as much as how you study while you’re there.
That's according to a Gallup poll released this week. Gallup and Purdue University announced a new effort to measure career and life outcomes for graduates.
Gallup surveyed 30,000 American college graduates about general well-being, employment and college experience.
One of the survey's primary takeaways is that connecting with at least one professor during a college career is one of the biggest factors in how graduates thrive after school.
More broadly, the poll found that the type of institution a student attended mattered less in terms of their success after graduation than what they did while they were at the institution. Here are some of the poll's key findings.
• 63 percent of those surveyed strongly agreed with the statement: "I had at least one professor at college who made me excited about learning”
• Graduates were 2.2 times more likely to be engaged at work if they had a mentor during their time at school
• Graduates who were emotionally attached to their college were 2 times more likely to thrive in terms of well-being
• There is no distinction between graduates of public and private colleges in terms of well-being. But there is a big difference between graduates of for-profit and not for-profit schools
For more information, check out the results here.
Purdue president Mitch Daniels sat down with the PBS NewsHour to discuss the results. “It turns out, what matters is not where you went to school, but how you went and how the school approached the process of your education,” Daniels said.
