Gallup-Purdue Index

Measuring College and University Outcomes

The ultimate metric of an institution's success is whether its alumni succeed in work and life.

Great jobs. Great lives.
Colleges and universities are struggling with increased demands from students, parents, taxpayers and legislators. These stakeholders demand assurances that institutions are providing students with experiences that prepare them to find good jobs and fulfilling lives after graduation.

Much like businesses have come to rely on third-party accounting firms to audit their financial health, college and university presidents and boards have come to rely on Gallup -- the world's most trusted research organization -- to measure the vital outcomes that affect the lives of their graduates.

Most measures of graduates' success focus on graduates' household or personal income. Gallup goes beyond these baseline measures, assessing graduates' employment, professions, workplace engagement and well-being, and then connecting these outcomes with key student experiences to help institutions create a rigorous process for continuous improvement.

50% of all alumni "strongly agree" their university education was worth the cost.

College graduates are almost 2X more likely to be engaged at work if they had a mentor who encouraged them to pursue their goals and dreams.

Graduates are 1.4 times more likely to be thriving in five key elements of well-being if a professor cared about them as a person.

Measurement that helps institutions create a rigorous process for continuous improvement.

Approach

The ultimate measure of an institution's success is whether its alumni succeed in work and life. Measuring and reporting outcomes are becoming expected responsibilities of colleges and universities to ensure they are living up to the ideals embodied in their mission statements.

The Gallup-Purdue Index enables institutions to understand:

whether alumni are engaged in their work
whether alumni are thriving in key aspects of their well-being
how alumni rate their undergraduate experiences and their attachment to their college or university following graduation

Gallup provides custom analytics and reporting to colleges and universities, including alumni in-depth qualitative interviews, with the unique ability to benchmark against a nationally representative study of 60,000 college graduates: the Gallup-Purdue Index. Institutions can compare their graduates against select cohorts, such as Carnegie Classifications, athletic divisions or other institutions in their state.

Institution Reports

Individual institutions hire Gallup to measure their alumni and compare them with national and peer cohorts from the Gallup-Purdue Index national study. The following reports have been publicly released.

National Reports

Great Jobs, Great Lives.

The Gallup-Purdue Index 2015 Report explores the relationship between student debt, experience and perceptions of college worth.

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Gallup-Purdue Index Inaugural National Report

This report -- based on interviews with more than 30,000 graduates -- measures the degree to which graduates have successful and engaging careers and if they are thriving in their overall well-being.

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Related Services

Improve Student Outcomes

Learn more about how your institution can provide students with experiences that prepare them to find good jobs and lead fulfilling lives. To request a quote, please fill out the form below.

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