When parents calculate the return on a college education, they tend to focus on the destination. The job. The salary. The graduate-school acceptance. What gets overlooked is the machinery that produces those outcomes.
At High Point University in North Carolina, that machinery has a name, a building and a national ranking: the Office of Career and Professional Development, rated the #9 best career services office in the country by The Princeton Review.
This office played a big role in ensuring that 99% of HPU’s Class of 2025 ended up employed or in graduate school within 180 days.
The ranking reflects a deliberate decision to invest in the people, programs, and physical space that help students turn into professionals.
It Starts in Cottrell Hall
The office is headquartered in Cottrell Hall, a building students visit regularly to work with career staff. One of them is Dr. Doug Hall, the university’s vice president of career and professional development.
Locating career services in a destination building rather than a back hallway is itself a statement.
Professional development is meant to be woven into daily campus life, not sought out in a moment of panic before graduation.
That accessibility is the foundation of HPU’s structured, four-year model. Students engage with the office early and often, building résumés, refining interview skills and clarifying career direction over the course of their entire education.
HPU in the City
One of the office’s signature offerings takes students off campus entirely. The HPU in the City program brings students to major metropolitan regions and inside companies such as Goldman Sachs, ABC News, Visa, Morgan Stanley and the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks headquarters, where they network with executives and alumni who work there.
These trips routinely expose students to career paths they had not considered, producing tangible internship and job opportunities in the process.
Few experiences sharpen a student’s sense of direction like walking the floor of a company they might one day join.
For High Point University students, those conversations are a built-in feature of the program.
Access to Innovators
The office’s reach is amplified by HPU’s Access to Innovators program, which brings a robust roster of leaders from many industries to campus to mentor students directly.
The lineup includes Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak, the university’s Innovator in Residence, and Netflix Co-Founder Marc Randolph, its Entrepreneur in Residence.
Regular access to figures of that stature gives students mentorship and professional networks that ordinarily take years, and considerable luck, to assemble.
Career Expos That Bring Employers In
While some programming sends students out, the office also brings employers to campus. HPU hosts Career and Internship Expos twice each academic year, drawing recruiters from companies such as Morgan Stanley, Northwestern Mutual and Novant Health.
At the Spring 2026 expo, brands including Boeing, Canon USA, Gartner, PNC Bank and Xerox sent representatives.
The recruiters notice the difference. “The students are well-prepared, and they’re asking great questions,” said Lisa Carlson, a Class of 2016 alumna who returned as a manager of university recruiting for Gartner.
“High Point University students are great because they offer examples of their experience, and they do research on the companies. It’s important to put yourself out there, network and get to know individuals. That’s the best way to start your career.”
Christian Davies, a Boeing supply quality representative attending for the first time, was equally direct: “We need extraordinary people. Our interns often come back to get hired.”
Specialized Support, Too
Beyond the marquee expos, the office supports dozens of professional-development events and major-specific fairs.
The Phillips School of Business hosts Accounting Career Fairs every year, bringing big four firms like PWC and KPMG to campus to recruit students. A recent Sales Career Fair welcomed representatives from major companies like Gartner, Lenovo and Mutual of Omaha. The Stout School of Education also hosted a career fair that drew representatives from 18 school districts across North Carolina and 16 area principals to recruit senior education majors for open teaching positions.
That granularity, matching specific students to specific employers, is part of what earns a top-ten national ranking.
The Payoff
Put together, a four-year model, a dedicated building, off-campus immersion, world-class mentors, twice-yearly expos and specialized fairs, the picture is of an operation built to leave little to chance.
The result manifests in outcome data, like the school’s 99% placement rate. For anyone trying to understand what a #9-ranked career services office actually does, High Point University offers a clear answer: it turns four years of structured support into a measurable head start.
