ERIC Number: EJ1471874
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Mar
Pages: 15
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0144-7394
EISSN: N/A
Available Date: 0000-00-00
A Worthy Investment? Investigating Alumni Perceptions of Nonprofit Degrees
Jo'ann Melville-Holder1; Amanda J. Stewart1; Kerry Kuenzi2; Marlene Walk3; Dylan Russell1; Shannon McGovern1
Teaching Public Administration, v43 n1 p40-54 2025
As students invest in higher education, an assumption of value creation emerges as training and education are expected to yield career and compensation outcomes. Given the growth of nonprofit management education, we see merit in investigating how alumni perceive their degree in terms of the return on their investment of money and time. This study relies on survey data collected from the (project name redacted for anonymity), and joins the Project's previous findings to elucidate how nonprofit management education is shaping the nonprofit sector's workforce. Our findings highlight how nonprofit sector commitment, but not work in the sector, influences how graduate alumni view their degree, and that those carrying a higher financial burden from their degree view their degree less favorably. These findings inform administrators of nonprofit degree programs about how students perceive the value of their education and how that perception impacts nonprofit management education as a pipeline for the nonprofit workforce.
Descriptors: Outcomes of Education, Alumni, College Graduates, Nonprofit Organizations, Public Administration Education, Graduate Study, Debt (Financial), Employment
SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: https://sagepub-com.bibliotheek.ehb.be
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1North Carolina State University, USA; 2University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, USA; 3Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, Germany