Gov. Rick Scott wants Florida's universities to make sure psychology majors and students pursuing other popular degrees can find jobs after graduation.

He's challenged the universities to get all graduates in their two, most in-demand majors into full-time jobs within a year of commencement. The employment rate in those fields for students who do not head to graduate school currently averages about 60 percent, Scott's office said.

Psychology is the top major on at least six state campuses, including the University of Central Florida, Florida State University and the University of Florida. Other popular majors are business, mass communications, English and criminology.

Some majors, including psychology, have drawn criticism from state leaders, who say they don't mesh well with Florida's job market. But a few, such as nursing at UCF, produce graduates who are all but guaranteed decent-paying jobs. Nursing is the second most-popular major at UCF.

Scott has invited university presidents to join him in Tallahassee on Thursday to discuss his "Ready, Set, Work" challenge.

The challenge has no set consequences. But the state university system, with Scott's encouragement, has pushed performance funding for Florida's 12 universities based partly on that same job metric, so schools have an incentive to improve their showing.

Scott's new effort continues his push to make higher education more responsive to the job market and to encourage students to pursue degrees that provide a clear path to employment. It's a campaign that has worried and sometimes angered some academics, but one the governor views as key to his job-focused agenda.

"Far too many university students are graduating today, some after spending years of their family's savings and others after taking on decades of debt, not able to find a job," he said in announcing the challenge last month.

University presidents sounded supportive and even excited by the challenge in letters they sent the governor after he announced it. That's in part, they said, because families who are paying college bills also are focused on jobs.

"We will do even more to educate all of our students about the jobs and salaries that each of our majors promises its graduates," wrote UCF President John Hitt. "And we adopt your important goal of increasing to 100% the number of students in our largest two majors who find employment within a year of graduation if they are not pursuing further education."

In their letters, the presidents noted new efforts to expand offerings in fields with good job prospects — the University of Florida mentioned biomedical engineering — and new career-planning programs to help students find employment.

The University of South Florida, for example, said it would work toward required internships to help students gain "workforce skills" and make connections "that directly lead to job offers."

Some administrators and professors, however, remain wary of a challenge that seems to puts student employment success on their shoulders and to undercut what they see as higher education's broader mission. They also remember how in 2011 Scott famously ripped anthropology as a field of study when arguing the state should spend more on education programs in engineering, science and technology.

"I think it's important to acknowledge that higher education is not just about job placement. We should also be talking about well-rounded citizens," said Jennifer Proffitt, an associate professor at Florida State University's school of communication and president of United Faculty of Florida.

But the chairman of UCF's psychology department, which boasts it is the largest psychology department in the western hemisphere, said he's seen a shift in faculty attitudes toward the governor's agenda and the benefits of some of Scott's demands.

"It's been good for psychology, and it's been good for our students," said Jeffrey Cassisi, the department's chairman. "I think that's how we're viewing the current challenge."

At UCF, which has nearly 4,000 students majoring in psychology, faculty members are confident psychology provides a foundation for a broad range of career plans, from business to medicine to law.

But they also agree more could be done to help students plan for life after graduation, so the department added two required courses for its majors, both focused on career planning.

Cassisi said professors don't want to be held accountable, however, for students who aren't committed to their studies or who, several years into college, still aren't certain what they want to do.

"I guess the part that scares the faculty, including me, is the idea that we're kind of responsible for so many young adults and for their outcomes," he added.

UCF junior Zoe Philipson is a psychology major with a double minor in statistics and cognitive sciences who plans to attend graduate school to become a practicing psychologist.

Philipson said psychology is popular because the subject is "very interesting to people" but also, probably, because it is considered an easier option then some, as it does not require intense math and science.

More career advice would likely benefit psychology majors not likely to pursue graduate studies. "They need more guidance," she said. "They can be a little lost."

University administrators said they are trying to provide that, with new initiatives that offer advice, salary information and internship possibilities.

"Making sure they have a plan. That's a point we're going to continue working on even harder," said UCF Provost Dale Whittaker.

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