It wasn’t until I graduated from college, with a Bachelor of Science from the University of Georgia, that I became more confused and concerned. It was the beginning of the economic recession; I was sending out more than 10 applications a day to various companies and organizations … and getting no replies. I was so confused as to why I had not made it yet. I went to college and got my degree like everyone said I should, but my dream job was still out of reach.

What a lot of adults failed to advise me about was the importance of expanding my networks. Although I was involved in track and field, I made very little time to become involved in additional extracurricular activities or professional development programs while completing my undergraduate degree. This is common for many students. Students often fail to realize the advantages of joining organizations like Model UN and student government, or completing a junior or senior year intern program. These organizations may seem like distractions from your exciting college social life, but they are actually a lot of fun and can often involve travel opportunities or scholarship awards.

In today’s competitive economy, employers receive hundreds of applications a day from eager new college grads hoping to fill the same sought-after position. This unfortunate reality makes it critical to ensure your resume has that extra competitive edge. This can start as early as high school by getting involved with a student-led organization, community service opportunity or other extracurricular activity. We always try to emphasize to FUEL families how these activities can strengthen a college application. Become a tutor, find a fun summer job, or join your schools debate team! These opportunities will make you a more competitive applicant while also helping you branch out to new social circles.

I ended up landing a great internship shortly after graduating college, and I got the chance to become more involved while attending graduate school. Just remember, it’s never too late!

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that on average in the U.S., each generation of children has more years of schooling than their parent’s generation. But the tables may be turning. While children born in 1955 had about two more years of education than their parents, children born in 1980 had only about eight months more schooling than their parents by the age of 30. This is a disturbing trend.

The reasons given for this trend include an increase in the high school dropout rate, rising college tuition costs, concern about accumulating student loan debt and uncertainty about the value of a college degree during an economic recession.

FUEL families, though, are positively resisting the new trend. They are optimistic about the future and actively encourage and support their children’s aspirations to get a college education.

In a survey of FUEL parents, we found that 36% of them had not gone to college, and 26% have taken some college courses but didn’t complete a degree. That’s a total of 62% of parents who did not graduate from college; however, each and every one of them will do everything they can to see their children earn a college diploma.

FUEL parents, like so many other low-income parents, believe that an education is the way into the middle class. On average the more educated people are, the more likely they are to be employed with higher incomes, even in today’s job market. FUEL families are also optimistic that when their children graduate from college, the economy will have turned the corner, and their children will be in the best possible position to take advantage of it.

In FUEL Savings Circles, parents learn how to fill out financial aid and scholarship forms, how to help their children select the best colleges for them and how to avoid the accumulation of a large student loan debt.

The families in FUEL are confidently bucking the downward trend. Many of them will see their children be the first-generation-to-college and with hard work, the first with a college degree.

The first thing I wanted to do was change the discussion from “parental involvement” to “family engagement.”

These two terms, though clearly related, are not synonymous and point to a real problem – the pervasive and damaging disconnect between schools, especially in upper grades, and parents and families of students. This situation is often exacerbated by ethnic, cultural and language differences between them.

Parental involvement efforts are far more common than engagement. Involvement tends to be school-centered and is generally characterized by one-way communication from the school to the parents. For example, notes home, automated phone calls, newsletters or requests for help on a particular project.

Engagement is more parent-focused and positions the school as a “listener” rather than a “teller.” With family engagement initiatives, parents are encouraged to voice their needs and expectations; what role they want to play in the life of the school; and how they can better communicate with the school. “Engagement” builds partnerships that help both schools and families. A school striving for family engagement leads with its ears—listening to parents’ thoughts, dreams and worries. The goal of family engagement is not to serve “customers,” but to gain partners.

Family engagement is a community activity. It is at the heart of the FUEL model. The perspectives, resources, needs and strengths of FUEL families are sought and valued. Connections are made among families who support one another in identifying and looking for solutions to the problems of preparing for college. Schools can and should follow a similar model.

Studies have shown that family engagement programs built on relationships, listening and shared decision-making can result in higher student grade point averages and test scores, better attendance, enrollment in more challenging courses, better social skills, and improved behavior at home and at school.

In addition, schools have a lot to gain from family engagement, including community support for funding requests, new program development, grant applications and an enhanced level of trust in administrators and teachers. Much good could come from that.

They were talking about their plans to go to college. Adrian was sure she’d be going to North Shore Community College, but Michelle hadn’t yet decided, though she’s leaning toward UMass Amherst.  I couldn’t resist butting in. “Why?” I asked. “Why those schools?” So they told me about the things they wanted to study and the careers they planned to pursue.

This reminded me of a front page article that I read in the Boston Globe on Sunday, April 15: Job hopes on the rise for college graduates. Job fairs and surveys of employers are illustrating more optimism about the job market for college graduates. Potential employers are predicting an increase of about 10% in new positions for college graduates, the largest job growth since 2007.

The article was not talking about “jobs” so much as it was talking about careers. Employers are looking for college graduates to fill openings, well aware that the future of their organizations depends upon well-educated and self-motivated people. They need young people who can work in rapidly evolving environments and use current and emerging technologies to help fuel growth. This trend is not just about filling a job, but about starting a career.

The most popular college majors now are very broad, ranging from degrees in business, communications and engineering, to computer science, mathematics, humanities, social sciences, health and education.

So of course I asked my new friends if their college plans were affected by the job market; for example, if most available jobs were in computer technology, would they consider going to college for that? “No,” they both said.

Michelle’s father told her that since she is good at math she should go into engineering because that’s where the jobs are. She wouldn’t hear of it. “I want to be a lawyer,” she said. “Even if my father is right and no one is hiring lawyers, that’s what I want to be.” Adrian wants to go into culinary arts and maybe become a sous chef. She’s not swayed by the ups and downs of the job market either.

Clearly the optimism among employers and career experts is extending to students. Well, good for them. And good for our future.

FUEL is about the outside. I hope to bring the good news to the conference that it is possible to build strong communities that support schools. I want to share the incentive tools we have developed that engage parents because every organization that works with kids can use them to include parents and build community. Yes, we encourage savings from parents and provide rich instruction — but the purpose is always to build community. Communities that will support students and their schools.

FUEL’s Director of Programming, Kaitlin LeMoine, will also speak tomorrow at the National Partnership for Educational Access annual conference in Chicago. The goal of this year’s meeting is to encourage participants to forge innovative collaborations and create strategies for supporting underrepresented students. Kaitlin will facilitate a workshop on implementing effective family engagement strategies, helping participants discuss, devise and evaluate their own plans to increase parental involvement in higher education preparation for their children.

Both Bob and Kaitlin will tweet live updates from the conferences throughout the day, so be sure to follow us @FUEL_Education all day tomorrow! We’ll also post new blogs about the conferences on FUEL Voices.

On one side you hear passionate and convincing arguments that colleges cost too much, don’t teach you marketable skills and bury you under mountains of debt. On the other is the equally passionate and convincing argument that a college education is the path to a higher paying job and the best way to break the cycle of poverty and build a stronger middle class.

Arne Duncan, the US Secretary of Education, reportedly said that he finds many graduates of four-year universities lacking “job skills,” requiring them to go to a community college to get the technical training for a “real” job. This was in a Boston Globe Magazine “Learning and Earning Issue” article that also reported that in Massachusetts there are 120,000 unfilled jobs because applicants don’t have the right skills, even though twice that many people in the state are unemployed. The criticism is that we are turning out a workforce without the skills to work in places like a GE plant.

This may be true, but when company executives are asked to describe the skills they are looking for most in employees, they tell you creative thinking, innovation and an ability to communicate well. In short, “people who can think.” If there is one thing that a four-year college education prepares you for, it is that job description.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics tells us that in March 2012 the unemployment rate among four-year college graduates was 4.2 percent. That is in stark contrast to the 12.6 percent unemployment rate among those who failed to earn a high school diploma and go on to college. Unemployment for high school graduates was 8 percent, and 7.5 percent for those with an associate’s degree.

The college debate and these statistics illustrate that it’s unclear what a college education is “good for” when it comes to finding a job. You may not be well-prepared for many jobs after spending four years working hard in college, but it is also true that you will be better prepared than non-graduates for certain professional careers that require in-demand skills like creative and innovative thinking, leadership, project management, clear communication and problem-solving.

Any parent, at least those parents I know in FUEL, will tell you without question that they want their children to go to college and that they are willing to work hard and save to give them that opportunity.

I get that same feeling now every time I walk onto a college campus. There is a “sky’s-the-limit” energy. Openness to new ideas, an active search for self-knowledge and growth, a hunger for learning and knowing all you possibly can.

Mark Edmundson wrote about that hunger in an opinion piece in the Sunday New York Times this past week. He questioned the assumption that a college education should be seen as an investment, which results directly in a job and a clear economic return on the investment.

While the assumption of a college-to-job connection is a current reality, it ignores the true value of a college education. Its true value is in empowering us with broad knowledge, transferable skills, and a sense of values, ethics and social engagement that helps us to become what we want to be in the world – and not just in a job.

Edmundson, a professor at the University of Virginia, writes, “there are plenty of young people out there who will end up in jobs that don’t demand college degrees: yet college is still right for them.” He describes these students as having “hungry hearts.” These are the students with the most energy to learn who get the most out of college. These are students for whom college is a great investment.

I know that many of the parents and families in FUEL also have hungry hearts. They see the quality of a college education and they pass that aspiration, that hunger, along to their children.

Here’s to all of the students, parents and families who’ve had dreams of what they might be, and the hungry hearts to help that happen.