In March 2025, RAND released the Building Impact report, highlighting gaps between architectural education and practice. The independent study—which featured surveys and interviews with hundreds of architecture students, faculty, and practitioners—identified several key issues related to the transition from student to working professional.
The culture of the architecture profession—including compensation, long-term career development, and belonging—came up throughout the Building Impact report as a potential barrier to practice. With nearly a third of the architect population nearing retirement age, ensuring the long-term health of the profession is key. Here are five findings from the Building Impact report that architects can use to lead changes that encourage the next generation of design professionals to consider a career in architecture:
1. There is a need for a coordinated, long-term effort to introduce K-12 students to architecture.
Exposure to architecture as a career opportunity has long been an issue within the profession, and the Building Impact report confirms that. Understanding what architects do and what skills they need can help students understand if a career in architecture might be right for them—but knowledge of the profession is often limited to students who have family friends or relatives in the design industry. While educators and practitioners noted they occasionally partner to offer local day camps, those programs often fade after several years.
Coordination between firms and schools to develop formal programs and the resources necessary to support them could help generate a stronger licensure pipeline.
2. The average income for both licensed and unlicensed practitioners—especially recent graduates—is not proportional to the costs of pursuing a career in architecture.
Throughout the Building Impact report, students and practicing professionals identified a mismatch between compensation and the cost of an architectural degree. Student debt levels for many emerging professionals are not manageable based on the average starting salary for recent graduates. According to the report, many M.Arch. graduates would fail a debt-to-earnings test—a measure of graduates’ federal loan payments compared to their median salary.
Exploring opportunities to improve salary expectations or provide other benefits that can support employees’ licensure costs is essential to ensuring that licensure candidates can afford to stay in the architecture profession.
3. Internships are essential for building up students technical skills—but students need greater support when it comes to finding internships.
Participants in the Building Impact study generally agreed that internships are critical for developing hands-on skills and transitioning to the workforce. Many students and practitioners suggested that schools should play a bigger role in helping emerging professionals find the right job opportunities, but schools require support from firms to make those programs happen. In addition, many students raised concerns that internship requirements don’t allow space for individuals who are truly new to the field, with years of technical experience required even at the internship level.
Through sustained partnerships with local academic programs, firm leaders can create the structured support that the next generation of architects need to succeed in their chosen field. In addition, firms should review their application requirements to ensure they reflect the level of ability needed in a student internship, and explore opportunities to take on training and mentoring roles for entry-level individuals.
4. Architecture firm culture remains a key barrier to entering the workforce.
When asked, more than 65% of the professionals who participated in the Building Impact study indicated that firm culture is a key barrier to entering practice, especially in areas related to work/life balance. As leaders in their firms, many architects play a foundational role in fostering a positive firm culture and can take steps to set appropriate work/life boundaries and ensure a sense of belonging among their employees.
With mental health a growing priority among the student population, taking steps to address a culture of “overwork” is critical to ensuring that the pipeline of future architects remains strong.
5. Educators feel that practitioners shape the curriculum taught at architecture school—but practitioners disagree.
The majority of practicing professionals (54%) reported that industry feedback is not incorporated into the development and modification of the architecture curriculum at all, whereas 68% of faculty reported that industry feedback is fully or somewhat incorporated into the curriculum.
By connecting with local educators to explore how curriculum translates to modern practice, architects could help educators better assess whether some topics are over- or under-taught in their program.
About the Building Impact Report
The outcome of data collected through surveys and focus groups with architecture students, faculty, and practitioners, the Building Impact report provides key insights into the accessibility, affordability, and applicability of architectural education. The study was commissioned by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and NCARB, with support from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), to better understand the current relationship between education and practice.
The Building Impact report is a direct follow-up to the 1996 Building Community report (also known as the “Boyer Report”), which identified several areas where education was misaligned with practice at the time and provided recommendations to build a stronger relationship between the two. Now, nearly 30 years later, the findings of the Building Impact report demonstrate that many of those gaps still exist.
Read the full report at www.ncarb.org/RAND.
