Life After UMaine - 2000/01 Baccalaureate
Degree Recipients
Introduction
The Office of Institutional Studies
recently completed a survey of the 1,201 individuals receiving
UMaine baccalaureate degrees in December, 2000, and in May and
August, 2001. A total of 563 degree recipients returned the
survey. This report summarizes the employment and
educational status of those UMaine graduates (at the time of
the survey six to fifteen months had elapsed, depending on
graduation date; 27 students with international addresses were
not mailed surveys; there were an additional 38 graduates for
whom no address could be obtained).
Employment After
Graduation
81.3% reported that they were employed
full-time, 11.3% said that they were employed part-time, 4.6%
reported being unemployed and 2.7% reported that they were
involved only in graduate school (see Figure 1). Outcomes of
this group of baccalaureate degree recipients are nearly
identical to the outcomes of last year’s graduates. Only
15.8% of those reporting full-time employment indicated that
their job was not related to their degree. [In addition, 10.5%
of those working full-time and 43.1% of those working
part-time were also attending graduate school, for a total
graduate school attendance rate of 18.5% (n = 104) of all
respondents.
Figure 1.
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Where are the jobs?
More than two-thirds (68.0%) of UMaine
graduates in 2000-2001 who reported working full-time remained
in Maine. This is a substantive increase from the 59.3% of
last year’s graduates who remained in Maine for employment.
Not surprisingly, the location of graduates’ work differed
between graduates originally from Maine and those not from
Maine. Among the graduates from Maine, 74.2% remained in
Maine (representing an increase of 7.7% from last year) and
25.8% left Maine for work. Of those graduates not from Maine,
40.7% remained in Maine to work after graduation (up from 33%
last year) while 59.3% left Maine to work (see Figure 2).
There were also differences in the location of full-time jobs
for graduates from different colleges. For example, 75.3% of
all the graduates from the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
- Social Sciences, 76.3% of the College of Education & Human
Development, and 75.7% of the College of Business, Public
Policy, and Health remained in Maine. By contrast, 52.0% of
all the graduates from the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
– Humanities and 52.5% from the College of Natural Sciences,
Forestry, & Agriculture reported staying in Maine to work (see
Figure 3).
Figure 2.
How well did UMaine
prepare its graduates?
Of those employed full-time in a job that
was related to their area of study 84.7% believed that their
UMaine experience prepared them “Very Well” or “Moderately
Well” and only 15.3% reported being “Minimally Prepared” or
“Uncertain”. Of those graduates enrolled in graduate school
(regardless of their employment status, n = 104, or 18.5% of
all respondents), 90.8% felt UMaine had prepared them “Very
Well” or “Moderately Well”, and 9.2% reported feeling
“Minimally Prepared” or “Uncertain”.
Figure 3.
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Who is attending
graduate school?
18.5% (n = 104) of the 563 respondents to
the survey reported being enrolled in graduate studies
(regardless of their employment status). The colleges of
these graduates that had the highest rate of graduate school
attendance were the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences –
Humanities (25.0%), the College of Natural Sciences, Forestry,
& Agriculture (23.6%), and the College of Engineering
(24.1%). The colleges that had the lowest proportion of
graduates attending graduate school were the College of
Liberal Arts & Sciences: Physical Sciences (7.7%) and College
of Business, Public Policy, and Health (11.1%) (see Figure 4).
Figure 4.
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What do they earn?
The median salary of the 380 graduates who
reported being employed full-time (and who reported their
annual income) was $30,000. The median salary for those
employed in Maine full-time was $28,000 and for those that
worked outside the state it was $34,000.
Median salaries of those working full-time
varied by college. For example, among all respondents the
median salary of graduates from the College of Liberal Arts &
Sciences: Physical Sciences was highest at $50,000 and the
median salary of those receiving degrees from the College of
Education & Human Development was the lowest at $23,750 (see
Table 1).
|
College |
Median Salary |
Median Salary
(In Maine) |
Median Salary
(Outside Maine) |
|
$ |
N |
$ |
N |
$ |
N |
| Business, Public Policy,
and Health |
36,000 |
95 |
35,000 |
71 |
40,000 |
24 |
| Education & Human
Development |
23,750 |
68 |
23,000 |
52 |
30,000 |
16 |
| Engineering |
47,000 |
62 |
47,000 |
40 |
47,250 |
22 |
| LAS- Humanities |
25,000 |
22 |
23,500 |
12 |
27,500 |
10 |
| LAS- Physical Sciences |
50,000 |
11 |
45,500 |
6 |
50,000 |
5 |
| LAS- Social Sciences |
25,000 |
60 |
25,000 |
44 |
30,000 |
16 |
| Natural Sciences,
Forestry, & Agrigulture |
26,000 |
55 |
25,000 |
26 |
28,000 |
29 |
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Method
The survey was mailed to 1,201 baccalaureate degree
recipients, who graduated in December, 2000, May, 2001, and
August, 2001. Follow-up surveys were mailed approximately
four and eight weeks after the initial mailing to those who
had not yet responded. A total of 563 graduates provided
usable responses to the survey, yielding a return rate of
50% (27 graduates with international addresses were excluded
from the mailings; there were an additional 38 graduates for
which addresses could not be obtained). At the time of the
survey six to fifteen months had elapsed, depending on
graduation date. The proportion of respondents by college
did not vary from the proportions in the population of all
graduates by college by more than three percent.
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