Notes

  1. Employers consistently report that they place high value on experiential learning (internships, co-ops, other work-based learning) as well as clearly demonstrated sector skills and career-readiness competencies in new graduates, including those from land-grant institutions.
    • National Association of Colleges and Employers. (2023). Job outlook 2024 (Research report). NACE.
    • Employers indicate they are seeking candidates who both have work experience and demonstrate key skills and competencies, with communication, teamwork, critical thinking, and problem-solving among the top-rated competencies and attributes. This is a widely used national benchmark across sectors and is highly credible in conversations about what employers want from graduates.
    • National Association of Colleges and Employers. (2025). Impacts of experiential learning on the Gen Z early career experience (Research brief). NACE.
    • NACE’s analysis of graduates from the classes of 2021–2023 shows that those who participated in experiential learning while in college had higher rates of career satisfaction and higher average salaries than peers who did not, underscoring employer valuation of applied experiences and work-based learning pathways.
    • Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. (2023). Employability skills in agriculture and natural resources (Issue brief). APLU. Employability Skills in Agriculture & Natural Resources - APLU
    • This APLU brief (from the land-grant association) emphasizes that employers in agriculture and natural resources seek graduates with experiential learning, sector-specific technical skills, and transferable competencies such as communication, teamwork, and problem-solving, and calls on land-grant universities to embed these outcomes in curricula and co-curricular experiences.
  1. Among Pennsylvania’s college‑age residents (roughly 18–24), the cohort currently represents just over 6% of the state’s population and is projected to continue shrinking modestly over the next five years, even as it becomes more racially and ethnically diverse. Recent state and Census‑based estimates indicate that non‑Hispanic White young adults still constitute a clear majority of this age group (on the order of 65–70%), but their share is declining by roughly 1–2 percentage points every few years, while Hispanic, Asian, multiracial, and other young people collectively account for about 30–35% and are growing at high single‑digit to low double‑digit rates over the decade. Over the next five years, this means a gradually smaller, older total population in Pennsylvania will be supported by a slightly smaller but more diverse college‑age cohort, with the most pronounced proportional growth among Hispanic, Asian, and multiracial youth.
  2. Training foreign graduate students in the U.S. has a substantial economic impact: international students as a whole contributed an estimated $43.8 billion to the U.S. economy and supported more than 378,000 jobs in the 2023–2024 academic year, with particularly strong contributions in research-intensive universities and STEM graduate programs that rely on international talent for lab productivity, grant-funded projects, and innovation. Beyond their direct spending on tuition and living expenses, foreign graduate students and other international students bolster local economies (housing, retail, services), sustain university research capacity, and feed the U.S. innovation system—foreign-born STEM students and workers alone have been estimated to contribute hundreds of billions of dollars in value-added economic output and are disproportionately represented among patent holders and high-growth startup founders.