College Grad Unemployment Just 5%

Roger_Dooley · 03-04-2011, 11:53 AM

When the national unemployment rate is at 9%, and 18% of those lacking a HS degree are looking for work, college grad unemployment is a mere 5% according to the latest stats:

Landing a job: It's about location and education - Business - Eye on the Economy - msnbc.com

So, if you are Bill Gates or Michael Dell, feel free to bail out early or skip college altogether; otherwise, get that degree!

netthreat · 03-04-2011, 09:24 PM

It deserves a bump....

soccerguy315 · 03-04-2011, 11:42 PM

how many are underemployed?

311710rvmt · 03-05-2011, 12:23 PM

What about incomes? I am not an economist, but some of the college grads I know are now under-employed. They have a job, but one they are overqualified for. College is now what high school used to be 50 years ago, a semi-mandatory requirement. Also, these statistics ignore the problem of college debt.

riku92mr · 03-05-2011, 07:24 PM

"If you're looking for a job with state and local government — think teachers, police officers, sanitation workers, etc. — your prospects continue to worsen. Budget cuts eliminated another 30,000 state and local government jobs in February. Since peaking in Sept., 2008, local governments have cut 377,000 more jobs than they created. "

I love how backwards our nation is.

bookmama22 · 03-05-2011, 08:16 PM

My older d graduated in 2007 and has a Masters degree in her field which is a terminal degree in her field. My younger d graduated in 2010. With the exception of those in MA/PhD programs or in law school, med school or now in nursing school, the only ones who have jobs in which they are not underemployed are nurses or in finance/investment banking. My older d is an adjunct faculty at the school where she received her graduate degree and is the youngest adjunct in the history of the school. She works p/t a a cultural institution at an Ivy League University in the same city. She can just about support herself for rent and food and not much beyond that-there are no benefits with either job except perhaps library privileges. My younger d had an internship in her field where she earned $100 a week. She along with all her friends are either babysitting, waitressing, working in bookstores, coffee shops, health clubs, yoga studios and so on..not one with any jobs with benefits other than those working in parent's businesses. ....

fabrizio · 03-06-2011, 10:47 AM

Quote:

College is now what high school used to be 50 years ago, a semi-mandatory requirement.

I wasn't alive half a century ago, but after reading the following article a few days ago

CUNY Adjusts Amid Tide of Remedial Students

I agree. Maybe we shouldn't be focused on getting more students into college. Maybe we should be focused on making high school more rigorous.

Idiosyncra3y · 03-06-2011, 12:16 PM

Same problem the world over. High school degrees/diplomas are becoming useless...

mariomaniac · 03-06-2011, 12:36 PM

Idiosyncra3y,

Well, taken alone, yeah, but you need one to be admitted to college

(unless you're opting for early college, etc...)

Of course, whether or not high school is necessary is debatable.

saketm · 03-06-2011, 12:56 PM

Definitely one of the 5%. I know a lot of people working at stores/shops/restaurants after a degree. THAT is not employment.

MmeZeeZee · 03-06-2011, 02:17 PM

Quote:

Mrs. Jenkins tells the interviewer that her daughter, Katherine Marie, was thinking about looking for work in the prior 4 weeks but knows of no specific efforts she has made. Katherine Marie does not meet the activity test for unemployment and is, therefore, counted as not in the labor force.

How the Government Measures Unemployment

I suspect a lot of recent graduates will be "not in the labor force" if their parents answered for them, or if they are not experienced with looking for employment as a full-time job.

I also agree that under-employment is probably a lot higher among the youth because unlike for workers with families, it is still profitable to take low-wage work. Older workers with children at home actually lose with some of those jobs because of the cost of child-care and commuting. Only people without child care costs can do it.

Exengineer · 03-06-2011, 04:08 PM

Bachelor's degrees are becoming what a high school diploma was 35 years ago, just a starting point, nothing special. A BS or BA is now like going to Grade 13, 14, 15, 16 and doing four more years of high school. If you are not absolutely certain to get a Master's degree, I don't recommend going to university at all. It's a bloody waste of time, effort and money.

Vyse · 03-06-2011, 11:22 PM

There are a lot of generalizations being made here, and there a lot of people with master's degrees that have low paying jobs too. Yeah, there are situations where going to college may not pay off, but there are still situations where it definitely will. This would be my hierarchy of options:

1) Go to an Ivy League school and study anything you want
2) Go to a flagship state school and study engineering
3) Go to a flagship state school and study finance/accounting/information systems. Or hard sciences/maths.
4) Go to a good non Ivy private university and study the subjects listed above. This option is better if you can avoid taking out too many loans.
5) Go to a flagship state school and study liberal arts

If you don't do any of those things-you choose an expensive school, one without a great reputation, take out loans to pay for it, and study something that doesn't teach you a specialized skill--then yeah, you're gonna have trouble finding a job.

beard tax · 03-07-2011, 02:13 AM

I think that an Ivy League education is overrated in many regards. The major advantage, in terms of career prospects, that an Ivy League school has is in the financial services industry. Investment banks simply don't recruit from the majority of undergraduate business schools and instead focus on Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Dartmouth, etc.

I think that your major and what you study are much more important than where you study. Look at the survey reports for the major universities. Approximately 20-30% of Princeton and Columbia students are unemployed. Investment Banking/Consulting/Teach for America are the most active employers. The Ivy League is a feeder for the financial services but are lousy at engineering. There are huge benefits for top students in terms of medical school and law school admission, but the average Ivy League student may have been better off being a big fish in a small pond, as the saying goes.

My personal ranking for employability would be:
1) Engineering/CS Degree at a good engineering school
2) Any major at an Ivy League school with a bent toward financial services/consulting
3) Accounting or Finance at a top business school

I think that studying the liberals arts is a waste of society's resources. During the financial crisis, the most toxic asset class was student loans. A college education is becoming more of a commodity and the difference between a secretary who studied Russian and a secretary who only graduated high school is marginal, and not worth 4 years of time and thousands of dollars in loans. College is more of a signalling mechanism to potential employers rather than a training ground. However, a college education is beneficial in non-quantifiable respects but the question is whether the government (i.e. taxpayer) should be footing the bill.

willmingtonwave · 03-07-2011, 11:21 AM

Colleges are very deceptive about those numbers. At first, my college considered me "employed" because I managed to get a temp job over the summer.

I completely disagree about the liberal arts. I wrote this article for College Thrive a while back, but I think it is worth reading:

Why the Liberal Arts are Not Such a Bad Investment CollegeThrive