Postsecondary Cooperative Education: An Examination of Survey Results and Policy Implications

This study of the nature, depth, and comprehensiveness of the system of postsecondary cooperative education shows the incidental presence of that system on U.S. campuses and demonstrates that cooperative education is highly unlikely to become the resource for a profound transformation of the work force that its advocates have suggested. The data were collected in 1987 as part of a larger study of postsecondary institutions involving survey responses from a nationally representative sample of 432 postsecondary education institutions. Respondents were institutional administrators, college placement directors, academic department chairpersons from occupational areas, faculty, and students in occupational education. The study's major findings are that less than 15 percent of the student enrollment of a national sample of three types of postsecondary institutions are involved in the program, less than half of those who do participate in the program receive academic credit for that participation, fewer than half of the nation's postsecondary placement directors regard postsecondary education cooperative education as an effective job development strategy, employers have little or no involvement in the determination of grades for participants, and the program is administered through only a small number of faculty coordinators. The document includes a 14-item bibliography and an appendix containing the survey questions regarding cooperative education. (CML)