Life After UMaine - 1999/2000 Baccalaureate
Degree Recipients
Introduction
The Office of Institutional Studies recently
completed a survey of the 1,192 individuals receiving UMaine
baccalaureate degrees in December, 1999, and in May and August,
2000. A total of 603 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; 60 students with
international addresses were not mailed surveys).
Employment After Graduation
80.8% reported that they were employed
full-time, 11.1% said that they were employed part-time, 3.6%
reported being unemployed and 4.5% 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 16.6% of those
reporting full-time employment indicated that their job was not
related to their degree. [In addition, 9.2% of those working
full-time and 57.1% of those working part-time were also attending
graduate school, for a total graduate school attendance rate of
22.9% (n = 125) of all respondents. This represents a 2.5%
increase in graduate school participation compared to the
percentage of last year’s graduates who enrolled in graduate
school.]
Figure 1.
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Where are the jobs?
More than half (59.3%) of UMaine graduates in
1999-2000 who reported working full-time remained in Maine. This
is a substantive decline from the 64.5% 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, 66.5% remained in Maine and 33.5% left Maine for work. Of
those graduates not from Maine, 33% remained in Maine to work
after graduation while 67% left Maine to work (see Figure 2).
Figure 2.
There were also differences in the location of
full-time jobs for graduates from different colleges. For
example, 69% of all graduates from the College of Education &
Human Development remained in Maine. By contrast, only slightly
more than half of all graduates from the College of Engineering
(57%) and the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences - Social Sciences
(55%), and close to half of all graduates from the College of
Natural Sciences, Forestry, & Agriculture (44%), reported staying
in Maine to work (see Figure 3).
Figure 3.
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How well did UMaine prepare
its graduates?
Of those employed full-time in a job that was
related to their area of study 91.5% believed that their UMaine
experience prepared them “Very Well” or “Moderately Well” and only
8.5% reported being “Minimally Prepared” or “Uncertain”. Of those
graduates enrolled in graduate school (regardless of their
employment status, n = 125, or 22.9% of all respondents), 91.9%
felt UMaine had prepared them “Very Well” or “Moderately Well”,
and 8.1% reported feeling “Minimally Prepared” or “Uncertain”.
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Who is attending graduate
school?
22.9% (n = 125) of the 603 respondents to the
survey reported being enrolled in graduate studies (regardless of
their employment status). The college of these graduates that had
the highest rate of graduate school attendance was the College of
Natural Sciences, Forestry, & Agriculture (29%). The College of
Education & Human Development and the College of Liberal Arts &
Sciences: Social Sciences and Physical Sciences programs had a
relatively high proportion in the sample attending graduate school
at 22% per college. The college that had the lowest proportion of
graduates attending graduate school was the College of Business,
Public Policy, and Health (11%)(see Figure 4).
Figure 4.
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What do they earn?
The median salary of the 419 graduates who
reported being employed full-time (and who reported their annual
income) was $30,000, an increase of $2,000 from the median salary
of last year’s graduates. The median salary for those employed in
Maine full-time was $26,500 and for those that worked outside the
state it was $32,000. Median salaries of those working full-time
varied by college. For example, among all respondents the median
salary of graduates from the College of Engineering was highest at
$45,000 and the median salary of those receiving degrees from the
College of Education & Human Development was the lowest at $24,000
(see Table 1).
|
College |
Median Salary |
Median Salary
(In Maine) |
Median Salary
(Outside Maine) |
|
$ |
N |
$ |
N |
$ |
N |
| Business, Public Policy,
and Health |
33,000 |
85 |
30,000 |
54 |
35,000 |
30 |
| Education & Human
Development |
24,000 |
72 |
23,000 |
49 |
30,000 |
23 |
| Engineering |
45,000 |
55 |
45,000 |
34 |
46,000 |
20 |
| LAS- Humanities |
25,000 |
33 |
21,000 |
22 |
30,000 |
11 |
| LAS- Physical Sciences |
40,000 |
15 |
36,500 |
10 |
53,000 |
5 |
| LAS- Social Sciences |
25,000 |
71 |
22,900 |
39 |
23,000 |
32 |
| Natural Sciences,
Forestry, & Agrigulture |
27,000 |
70 |
25,800 |
34 |
29,500 |
29 |
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Method
The survey was mailed to 1,132 baccalaureate
degree recipients, who graduated in December, 1999, May, 2000, and
August, 2000. Follow-up surveys were mailed approximately four
and eight weeks after the initial mailing to those who had not yet
responded. A total of 603 graduates provided usable responses to
the survey, yielding a return rate of 53% (60 graduates with
international addresses were excluded from the mailings). 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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