Many students turn to work-study programs as a way to pay for college. Too often, however, these programs involve little professional development to help students prepare for careers. Unpaid internships frequently do, but they don’t pay the bills.

What if work-study wasn’t just about paying for college? What if it was a more intentional part of a student’s education?

Colleges and universities are increasingly asking these very questions. And as a result, some are developing innovative models to make on-campus employment a path to post-graduation jobs.

For almost a decade, Mary Marcy has been president of Dominican University of California. What began 130 years ago as a religious school for women now serves about 1,750 co-ed students, many of them first-generation.

Marcy’s work to help the liberal arts college attract and serve new kinds of students inspired her to write a book about the ways other small colleges are responding to today’s economic pressures and demographic changes. In this interview, she discusses why some schools end up merely tweaking their traditions while others morph into online behemoths.