As the Class of 2026 prepares to enter the workforce this summer, they—like last year’s graduates and those already in the job market—are facing what economists now call a “low hire, low fire” economy. Whether this is driven by AI or other economic factors remains hotly debated, but the causes are beside the point for new grads looking for jobs postgraduation in an economy marked by a pullback in early-career hiring.
While higher education cannot unilaterally fix the current job market, we can pull out all the stops to help prepare our students for the reality they now face.
“The Agility Imperative,” a 2025 survey of 1,030 employers published by the American Association of Colleges and Universities, reinforces what higher ed thought leaders already understand—that students increasingly need diverse experiential opportunities to be competitive in today’s rapidly evolving labor market.
While the report’s numbers are encouraging, there remains a gap between employers’ belief in the importance of key skills versus their confidence that higher education institutions have adequately prepared students to apply them. For example, 95 percent of surveyed employers agreed that it was somewhat or very important for college students to emerge with the ability to apply their knowledge to the real world. However, only 78 percent felt that students are already somewhat or very well prepared to do so. A smaller but still notable gap occurred regarding teamwork, with 95 percent of employers believing it to be somewhat or very important and 82 percent believing that students were prepared to apply it in real-life settings.
The good news is that, despite the many clickbait headlines to the contrary, employers continue to say that colleges are doing a good job building these important skills. But we still have more work to do in closing the preparation gaps in these key skill sets that employers highly value. The question is: How do we provide all students with the opportunity to develop these in-demand skills?
Many students face significant barriers that make the traditional internship experience inaccessible. Some struggle to afford the housing or transportation needed to participate in on-site internships, particularly in expensive metro areas, while others are unable to find time for in-person commitments among packed athletic, academic and extracurricular schedules.
And, to make matters worse, the number of available internships has been dropping 10 to 20 percent per year since 2022. Each posted internship on the most widely used platform now receives between 100 and 300 applications. We can’t keep putting all our eggs in this one (shrinking) basket.
At UVA, we set out to tackle this challenge. Our strategy calls for flooding the zone—that is, providing students with an expanded set of flexible, accessible, options for career-connected learning beyond just the traditional summer internship experience.
For example, UVA’s Career Academies offer an accessible, no-cost option for students seeking to explore a range of careers and build relevant career experience that fits into their busy schedules. These experiences pair virtual, asynchronous employer projects with free access to Google Career Certificates over scheduled academic breaks, ensuring students emerge with both practical knowledge and direct experience. While open to all, these experiences prove particularly valuable to student athletes and club leaders, whose schedules during term are often constrained by their commitments to their respective programs.
Tristen Davin, a third-year data science student and student athlete, discovered Career Academies through his athletic adviser. As a swimmer with a rigorous summer training schedule, Davin was unable to commit to an in-person internship. However, his experience in Career Academies enabled him not only to tackle real-world applications of his data science skills, but to work with other students—including fellow student athletes—toward a common deliverable. “Doing this has made me realize that everyone has different schedules, everyone does different things, and just finding a time to put aside to actually do a project can turn out really well,” Davin reflected. The career academy, he said “is low stress, and also, you get a lot out of it.”
UVA’s Career Academies also provide students with direct employer interaction, allowing them to gain a profound understanding of company operations and culture without having to travel to an office. Third-year computer science major Amrit Kaur, who serves as the mentorship chair of UVA’s Women in Computing Sciences club, enjoyed learning directly from a CEO as part of a data modeling project. “Working with an employer was cool because we had scheduled calls and I got a feel of what it’s like in the real world when you’re really working with these teams,” remarked Kaur.
As in traditional internships, the significance of these interactions extends far beyond the internship period. Kayla Kim, a third-year data science major, later sourced an internship with her Career Academy employer, El Locale, after an offer from a government agency was rescinded during a hiring freeze. In addition to providing relevant career experience, the flexibility of her extended internship with El Locale provided her the opportunity to upskill without disrupting her academic schedule.
UVA’s Career Academies don’t just provide an opportunity to build practical, lifelong skills—they also help students build résumé-worthy experiences that make them more competitive in their job searches. The Agility Imperative report reminds us that employers continue to place a high value on hands-on, applied experiences across a range of relevant workplace settings. Further, employers are increasingly viewing microcredentials such as Google Career Certificates as indicators of a student’s commitment to lifelong learning and continuous upskilling. In response to exploding demand from both students and employers, this summer we are offering a new Career Academy called AI4VA focusing specifically on applying AI skills in workplace settings.
The age-old advice about not putting all your eggs in one basket holds just as true today. As the availability and quality of traditional internships declines, we owe it to our students to provide new options to explore their career interests and develop the kinds of in-demand skills and experience that employers are seeking.
We must flood the zone with multiple options for experiential enrichment, meeting students where they are, on their own time and with a range of offerings that fit in with their schedule, constraints and priorities.
Kemi Jona is the vice provost for Online Education and Digital Innovation at the University of Virginia, where he advances the university’s digital education strategy, helping to shape UVA’s vision for online education in alignment with UVA’s position as one of the nation’s leading public research universities.
Jaden Bernard is the strategic initiatives coordinator for UVA Online Education and Digital Innovation. She leads OEDI’s communications efforts and has spearheaded numerous digital and AI innovation pilots for UVA students, faculty and staff.
