GCCA | Graduate Careers Council of Australia

Graduate Careers Australia

ergo - Number 86 March 2002

The Grad Files 2002

The Grad Files is a summary of the key findings from the Graduate Destination Survey report. It has been developed to help prospective university students better understand their higher education options and potential career outcomes, and is also useful for the families of prospective students and the general public. In 2001, a number of interesting facts emerged and have been documented in The Grad Files.

While graduates as a whole remain more likely to find employment quickly when entering the workforce, a little more than one in five chose to go on to further study when completing their degrees in 2001, slightly less than in 2000. The average starting salary for new bachelor degree graduates in 2001 was $35,000, a figure which is quite favourable when compared to the whole Australian workforce, which averaged $40,800.

The Grad Files also provides some commentary concerning the findings related to gender in graduate outcomes, and overall for 2001 female salaries were at 94.4% of those for males.

The Course Experience Questionnaire is an important component of the Graduate Destination Survey which rates students’ levels of satisfaction with their courses, and in 2001 graduates indicated that satisfaction levels are not only high across the country, but have also steadily improved across the last six years.

The Grad Files also emphasises that statistical comparisons should be accompanied by some investigation into entry requirements for various occupations; for example in industries such as pharmacy, further training may skew the starting salary figures in relation to other industries.

The Grad Files can be downloaded here . If you would like a print copy, please contact the gradlink Helpdesk on (03) 9349 4300 or [email protected] .