Employment of College Graduates in the Era of Universalized Higher Education

Abstract

The employment performance (including salaries, relevant to studies and job satisfaction) of college graduates from different school types and disciplines after the universalization of higher education in Taiwan was examined and a comparative analysis was conducted in this article. The findings were as follows: 1) "Medicine and health" and "industrial arts" were the best disciplines in terms of overall employment performance; however, "arts," "agriculture," "mass media," "physical education/other," "home economics," and "tourism services" performed poorly overall in terms of employment. 2) The graduates' employment performance in the school type of "public universities" was better than others for the most part in Taiwan; however, the graduates of "public universities" who majored in arts, agriculture, mass media, physical education/other, home economics, and tourism services did not do well in terms of their employment performance. Based on the analysis, from the viewpoint of employment, we suggested that Taiwan's colleges and universities restructure the disciplines within their institutions and we also offered some suggestions to high school graduates about how to choose higher education institutions and disciplines.