Closing the Imaginative Gap: Linking Civically Engaged Students with Careers of High Social Impact

Currently, over a quarter of graduating Duke seniors accept jobs in the consulting or financial services (C&F) industries. These students overwhelmingly cite their employment decision as one motivated by financial and psychological security, and plan to work long-term in high social-impact careers. For a university which has a strong stated commitment to the civic engagement of its students—investing tens of millions of dollars in programs like the Hart Leadership Program, DukeEngage, and the Duke Center for Civic Engagement—this misalignment is not socially optimal.

Compared to employers in other sectors, C&F firms have much greater financial resources to expend on recruitment. They are able to recruit very early and aggressively, and hire many of Duke’s most talented graduates before they are able to consider other opportunities in the private, public, and social sectors. The flow of students into C&F careers is symptomatic of a broader problem: through their activities at Duke, students have clearly expressed the need to see and imagine a wider range of viable civically-engaged career options—a need which the university fails to address.