Students Say Fashion Schools Aren't Helping Them Find Jobs After Graduation

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Business of Fashion is rolling out a brand new platform called BoF Education, where the site will give dedicated space to tracking the successes and failures of fashion education, as well as providing its own free online courses. In honor of the launch, BoF released a global ranking of the top fashion schools in the world, along with statistics gleaned from a survey of over 4,000 students and alumni giving feedback on their own fashion education.

The results show that there's a big gap between schools supporting students while they are working towards their degree, and then helping them afterwards to successfully find a job in the industry. 83% of students who were surveyed were satisfied with the level of teaching that they received, but just 57% were satisfied with the career services at their schools. Only 53% of students were satisfied with their networking events, and only 49% were satisfied with the quality of job recruiters on campus. "Parsons tested my work ethic and exposed me to a diverse student body and resources, but poorly prepared students for the realities of job placement and career development," a Parsons alumnus tells BoF.

On top of that, students feel like they aren't getting necessary business training to be successful in full-time employment or in launching their own lines. Only 58% of students surveyed said that they were satisfied with their business training.

"It's one of the most prestigious schools in the world when it comes to fashion, and just that in itself opened a lot of doors for me," one Central Saint Martins alumnus tells BoF. "There is a lot of controversy around the training at Saint Martins though, like the fact that we didn't have a single technical class or business course throughout our BA. If you want to have that you are told you can go somewhere else."