Career Centers

The comprehensive college and university career center is a uniquely American phenomenon that has evolved over the past 100 or more years in response to changing educational, economic, political, and social conditions. This entry identifies several historic events in the evolution of the career center, outlines the core functional elements, enumerates the behavioral objectives, and provides a brief summary and look to the future.

Prior to the passage of the Morrill Act, also known as the Land Grant College Act, in 1862, higher education in the United States was a privilege to which a relatively small percentage of the population had access. Students entering higher education did so largely with a view to entering the professions, and there was little need for career assistance that could not be provided by faculty who took a natural interest in the career development and aspirations of their students. The Land Grant College Act changed all that. With the passage of the Morrill Act in 1862, the nation entered an era of unprecedented public support for higher education. Prior to that, the majority of those who entered college were generally more concerned with accumulating credits and acquiring licenses than with learning any particular skill while enrolled. The passage of the Morrill Act signaled a sea change in the national philosophy toward and resource commitment to public higher education and redefined higher education as a means by which the masses could acquire not only knowledge but also marketable skills and professional preparation to enter the workforce.

The Truman Commission Report of 1948 acknowledged the economic significance of higher education for the first time, determined that half or more of the American public was capable of completing a baccalaureate degree and, more important, that the public had a “right” to expect that public support of higher education would put a bachelor's degree within reach of any American who had the ability to secure one. Essentially, higher education became a “right” rather than a privilege, and a massive resource influx from the GI Bill and other sources propelled public higher education to unprecedented growth. With this rapid growth and the necessity to meet the needs of huge, diverse student bodies, higher education was forced to specialize. Faculties were no longer able or willing to provide for myriad out-of-class needs of students, giving birth to a new classification of professionals called “student affairs.” The offices that evolved to provide for the career development needs of students were called “placement offices,” the early forerunners of career services.

By the end of World War II, public higher education had become a major societal force whose raison d'être had become so integrated with that of business and government that some critics began to refer to the educational/military/industrial complex in a derogatory way. The single-purpose placement office that had done little more than assist students in finding their first jobs was no longer adequate to meeting the increasingly complex career development needs of students and the greater society.

At the same time that public higher education was experiencing massive growth, the world of work had shifted from being primarily agrarian to manufacturing and was now moving into the postindustrial era: The “knowledge revolution” had begun. With these changes came the recognition that the work of the career center was more than simply finding jobs for students, a [Page 76]“point-in-time event”; rather, career development was increasingly seen as a complex, lifelong process.

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