vspace has no effect in parcolumns

Question

I have following template for my resume wherein I am trying to get rid of the space between two education fields (space between two university entries, this causes my resume to go to second page). The code that I use is as belows:

\documentclass[a4paper,20pt]{article}

\usepackage[total={6.5in,8.75in}, top=1.2in, left=0.9in]{geometry}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage{parcolumns}

\pagestyle{fancy}
% Remove page numbers
\fancyfoot{}

\setlength{\headheight}{28pt}
\chead{%
  \fontsize{20.74pt}{24pt}\selectfont{}%
  Name\\%
  \fontsize{8pt}{9.6pt}\selectfont{}%
  Address, Phone Number, etc.; %
  \href{mailto:mail@gmail.com}{\nolinkurl{mail@gmail.com}}; %
  \href{http://www.google.com}{WWW}%
}
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0.4pt}

\begin{document}
\begin{parcolumns}[nofirstindent, colwidths={1=.15\linewidth}]{2}
  \colchunk[1]{%
  EDUCATION\\*
  \\*
  \\*
  \\*
  }
  \colchunk[2]{%
  \textbf{University of XXX, XXX}\hfill 2011 - 2013 (Expected)\\*
  Master of Science, Computer Science, 4.0/4.0\\*
  \\*
  \textbf{University of YYY, YYY}\hfill 2005 - 2009\\*
  Bachelor of Technology, Computer Science, 10.0/10.0
  }
\end{parcolumns}
\end{document}

which produces following pdf:

I tried putting in \vspace{<some-num>mm} between two university entries so as to reduce the gap, but \vspace has no effect.

Can somebody help me with this?

Thanks!

Answer 1

There are better ways of obtaining your output. However, I assume you already have a setup in place, and changing it now might be a moot point. As such, consider using \\*[<len>] to have a fixed length <len> vertical skip between entries:

\documentclass[a4paper]{article}

\usepackage[total={6.5in,8.75in}, top=1.2in, left=0.9in]{geometry}% http://ctan.org/pkg/geometry
\usepackage{fancyhdr}% http://ctan.org/pkg/fancyhdr
\usepackage{hyperref}% http://ctan.org/pkg/hyperref
\usepackage{parcolumns}% http://ctan.org/pkg/parcolumns

\pagestyle{fancy}
% Remove page numbers
\fancyfoot{}

\setlength{\headheight}{28pt}
\chead{%
  \fontsize{20.74pt}{24pt}\selectfont{}%
  Name\\%
  \fontsize{8pt}{9.6pt}\selectfont{}%
  Address, Phone Number, etc.; %
  \href{mailto:mail@gmail.com}{\nolinkurl{mail@gmail.com}}; %
  \href{http://www.google.com}{WWW}%
}
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0.4pt}

\begin{document}
\begin{parcolumns}[nofirstindent, colwidths={1=.15\linewidth}]{2}
  \colchunk[1]{%
  EDUCATION\\*
  \\*[.5\baselineskip]
  \\*
  }
  \colchunk[2]{%
  \textbf{University of XXX, XXX}\hfill 2011 - 2013 (Expected)\\*
  Master of Science, Computer Science, 4.0/4.0\\*[.5\baselineskip]
  \textbf{University of YYY, YYY}\hfill 2005 - 2009\\*
  Bachelor of Technology, Computer Science, 10.0/10.0
  }
\end{parcolumns}
\end{document}

In the above example, the skip between items is given by .5\baselineskip (half a line skip). Modify this to suit your preference.

Answer 2

Check this:

\documentclass[a4paper,20pt]{article}

\usepackage[total={6.5in,8.75in}, top=1.2in, left=0.9in]{geometry}
\usepackage{fancyhdr}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage{parcolumns}

\pagestyle{fancy}
% Remove page numbers
\fancyfoot{}

\setlength{\headheight}{28pt}
\chead{%
  \fontsize{20.74pt}{24pt}\selectfont{}%
  Name\\%
  \fontsize{8pt}{9.6pt}\selectfont{}%
  Address, Phone Number, etc.; %
  \href{mailto:mail@gmail.com}{\nolinkurl{mail@gmail.com}}; %
  \href{http://www.google.com}{WWW}%
}
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0.4pt}

\begin{document}
\begin{parcolumns}[nofirstindent, colwidths={1=.15\linewidth}]{2}
  \colchunk[1]{%
  EDUCATION\vspace*{6pt}\\*
  \\*
  \\*
  }
  \colchunk[2]{%
  \textbf{University of XXX, XXX}\hfill 2011 - 2013 (Expected)\\*
  Master of Science, Computer Science, 4.0/4.0\vspace*{-6pt}\\*
  \\*
  \textbf{University of YYY, YYY}\hfill 2005 - 2009\\*
  Bachelor of Technology, Computer Science, 10.0/10.0
  }
\end{parcolumns}
\end{document}