Riipen’s Career Connected Campus: Career readiness infrastructure for higher ed institutions.

Higher education has spent the last decade investing in career readiness.

Institutions have expanded internship programs, strengthened career services, developed employer partnerships, and integrated experiential learning opportunities into academic programs. These investments have created meaningful opportunities for many learners.

Yet despite this progress, a troubling reality remains: employers continue to report that graduates are arriving less prepared than they need to be, while students themselves believe they are ready for the workforce.

The gap is widening.

According to NACE's 2024 Student Survey and Job Outlook 2025, 78% of graduates rate their communication proficiency as proficient, while only 54% of employers agree. Similar gaps exist in critical thinking, professionalism, and other competencies employers increasingly value.

At the same time, the nature of entry-level work is changing.

Artificial intelligence is reshaping the roles new graduates have traditionally relied on to gain experience and develop professional judgment. Strada's 2026 research found that more than 40% of employers report AI has already increased the analytical and decision-making demands of entry-level work. Most hiring managers now expect AI to reduce entry-level and internship roles in the years ahead.

The implications are significant. Students are entering a labor market where durable skills matter more than ever, yet those same skills are among the most difficult to develop through classroom instruction alone.

The question facing institutional leaders is no longer whether career readiness matters; it’s whether the current approaches are sufficient to deliver it at scale.

Internships are not the only solution.

When readiness gaps emerge, the instinct is often to expand internships. But a single experience near graduation cannot carry the entire burden of preparing students for professional success. Career readiness should span an entire degree rather than be a tool used in a single semester.

By the time learners arrive at a high-stakes internship or capstone, many are encountering employer expectations for the first time. They are expected to communicate professionally, collaborate effectively, navigate ambiguity, manage competing priorities, and demonstrate judgment in environments they have never experienced before.

Even the strongest internship cannot fully compensate for years spent without opportunities to practice those skills.

Career Connected Campus: Career readiness developed through innovation.

The institutions making the greatest progress are approaching career readiness in different ways. Rather than concentrating employer-connected experiences at the end of the student journey, they are creating structured opportunities that begin early and grow in complexity over time.

Learners receive exposure to employers in their first years. They participate in increasingly sophisticated projects and experiences throughout their academic journey. By the time they reach internships, capstones, or other culminating experiences, they arrive prepared to maximize those opportunities.

That’s where Riipen’s Career Connected Campus comes in, an enterprise-wide solution that gives academic institutions a centralized infrastructure to integrate work-based learning for learners to access.

"Students are demanding clearer pathways to careers, and employers are calling for academic programs more tightly aligned with the world of work."

Dana Stephenson, Riipen co-founder and CEO

This progression matters.

NACE research shows that learners who participate in multiple high-impact experiences demonstrate stronger career competencies than peers who participate in a single placement.

• Retention improves because learners can see the connection between their education and their future.
• Enrollment increases because institutions can make a more credible promise about what their degrees produce.
• Career services become more effective.
• Internships become more valuable.
• Existing investments go further.

From programs to infrastructure.

This is where many institutions encounter a challenge.

A scaffolded continuum of career-connected learning cannot be assembled one program at a time. It requires infrastructure. The institutions leading the way are increasingly treating career-connected learning the same way they treat advising, student success, or financial aid: as a foundational system that supports every student.

Career Connected Campus is built on this principle.

Rather than relying on isolated initiatives, the Career Connected Campus creates a deliberate progression of employer-connected experiences that spans majors, years of study, and student populations. The goal is not to create another program. The goal is to create an institutional capability. One that ensures every student has structured access to meaningful career-connected learning throughout their degree.

Why institutions are acting now.

Three forces are accelerating this shift.

1. The entry-level labor market is changing rapidly.

As AI absorbs routine work, employers are placing greater value on communication, judgment, problem-solving, collaboration, and adaptability. These are precisely the competencies developed through authentic employer-connected experiences.

2. The conversation around the value of higher education has intensified.

According to Lumina Foundation and Gallup, 84% of learners cite employment outcomes as their primary reason for enrolling in college or university.

Students, families, boards, accreditors, and policymakers are all asking a version of the same question: What will this degree actually produce?

Institutions need an answer that extends beyond a list of programs and services.

3. Outcomes reporting is becoming a mandate.

Due to new regulatory guidance in the U.S. and growing student demand, academic institutions must demonstrate how pursuing a degree program affects employment prospects and earnings.

Institutions will have a competitive advantage in attracting and retaining students while reinforcing their reputation for innovation. Those who begin building career readiness infrastructure today will have years of outcome data, employer validation, and student success stories when their peers are still trying to assemble programs.

Introducing Career Connected Campus.

Career Connected Campus was designed to help institutions operationalize this model at scale.

Rather than institutions having to build career-readiness infrastructure from scratch, Career Connected Campus provides the systems, employer network, and operational framework to deliver career-connected learning across the student journey.

Riipen provides:

• Access to a network of more than 53,000 employer partners.
• A scalable work-based learning platform.
• Assessment frameworks aligned to career competency development.
• Structured employer-connected experiences across stages of student readiness.
• Institutional data and reporting to demonstrate outcomes.

The result is a model that can reach thousands of students across majors and years of study while maintaining quality and consistency.

Most importantly, it ensures career-connected learning becomes a feature of the degree itself rather than an opportunity available only to the students who know where to find it.

The future belongs to institutions that innovate.

The workforce readiness gap is not a career services problem, an internship problem, or even an institutional design challenge. Higher education has already invested heavily in internships, career services, and experiential learning. Those investments remain essential. But they deliver their greatest value when students arrive prepared to benefit from them.

That preparation begins long before graduation. The institutions that recognize this reality and build career readiness as infrastructure will be the institutions that lead on student outcomes, graduate success, and institutional differentiation in the decade ahead.

Career readiness is not built in a single experience. It is built across the entire degree. And that is the promise of a Career Connected Campus.

👉 Ready to explore what a Career Connected Campus could look like at your institution? Book a consultation with the Riipen team to learn more.

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About the author:

Jasmine Roberts leads the content team at Riipen as the Senior Manager of Brand and Content Marketing. With a passion for writing, Jasmine has written for over 10 Canadian publications, including ELLE Canada, Collider, Later, and more. With a love of education and higher learning, Jasmine is proud of the work Riipen does to help learners gain real-world experience to prepare for their careers.

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