[Tex/LaTex] vspace has no effect in parcolumns

parcolumnsspacing

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:

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!

Best Answer

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:

enter image description here

\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.

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