It Takes a Mentor to Succeed

From the TI archives — originally published September 2014.

In 2014, Gallup released the first wave of its Gallup-Purdue Index — a study of what actually links college to long-term success at work. The results were a revelation, and Thomas Friedman wrote them up in a New York Times column that month titled, fittingly, "It Takes a Mentor" (NYT).

Two things stood out, according to Brandon Busteed, executive director of Gallup's education division: successful students had one or more teachers who were mentors — professors who took a real interest in their aspirations — and they had an internship related to what they were studying.

The numbers: graduates who strongly agreed that they had a professor who cared about them as a person, made them excited about learning, and encouraged them to pursue their goals were twice as likely to be engaged at work and thriving in overall well-being.

Not which college they attended. Not their grades. A human being who cared.

The sad fact buried in the study: only about 22 percent of graduates said they had a mentor. Which means the single biggest lever on long-term thriving was the rarest thing in higher education.

The mechanism isn't mysterious. A mentor shows a student that someone cares, that someone is listening. School stops being a transaction and becomes personal. Mentors help students work toward a goal, sharpen their confidence, and walk out the door with something no credential supplies — the sense that their ambitions are real and visible to at least one other person.

It takes a village to raise a child. Apparently it takes a mentor to launch an adult.