Universal Tool & Engineering has partnered with East Tennessee State University School of Graduate Studies’ Engineering program. Over the next several weeks, five students from an engineering grad school program will be working with the engineering and operations department.  Their assignment is to observe UTE, identify a technical or operational issue, gather data, and submit a proposal to solve the technical issue.

Despite a steady decrease of unemployment after the 2008 financial crisis, statistics from the Fed show that the unemployment rate of this demographic has been steadily increasing over the past year. A more disturbing conclusion from this study states that recent graduates are more likely to be unemployed and underemployed than overall workers.  This is the first time this has happened in over 30 years. It appears colleges collecting tuition large enough to cause a higher overall consumer debt than credit cards and auto loans are not doing enough to prepare their students for their careers.

UTE plans to do its part in the community, however small it may seem next to 45 million borrowers at an all-time high $1.6 trillion in student loans. Positioning students in an environment rich in their field of study, tasked with solving a complex issue over a nine week period will enable them to get actual experience along with a resume line item that will get ETSU graduates a step closer to landing them their first job out of college.