Dive Brief:

• A new study from Gallup suggests that students who are exposed to nurturing faculty and engaging internship or extracurricular experiences have double the amount of professional satisfaction in their post-collegiate lives. 
• The survey of more than 60,000 college graduates reveals that these elements, which could be classified as customer service elements in the college setting, promote key metrics of individual purpose and well-being in financial, social and emotional areas of life. 
• Gallup recommends that colleges increase their focus on mentoring and career development to help students make stronger connections between college preparation and their success in working and personal development. 

Dive Insight:

This is the second major survey for Gallup making connections between the collegiate experience and the well-being of graduates in life after college years; the first, a groundbreaking assessment of historically black college graduates who displayed more personal satisfaction with their post-graduate lives than black peers from predominantly white institutions. 

It is becoming clear that a nurturing environment is becoming a more important part of the college experience, but that concept runs countercultural to the nation's fascination with Ivy League education, which promotes hyper-competitive, survivalistic education as the true form of higher education. Perhaps students, and the evolutions fo communication and industry, are showing there is value in service and industrial expectations, even in higher education.