Well this article certainly doesn’t reduce the anxiety around choices of major, competition for internships and job hunting. According to the WSJ, roughly half of college graduates end up in jobs where their degrees aren’t needed, and that underemployment has lasting implications for workers’ earnings and career paths. According to the WSJ, taking a job outside your desired industry (such as taking a retail or food service job to pay the bills while you job hunt) can hurt you because the online algorithms that scan resumes and job applications then pass you over as working in the wrong sector. And the article presents the necessity of at least one college internship as key to landing that critical first job out of college. Half of College Grads Are Working Jobs That Don’t Use Their Degrees - WSJ
Thank you for posting. Very interesting results.
I wish I could find a report like this by schools. The article seems to support what I’ve heard about certain degrees. But some people seem to be convinced that certain schools are an exception to these results.
The study the article is referencing (or at least the way the article talks about the study) sounds more descriptive than rigorous.
I didn’t see any attempt to account for selection effects. “People who get internships are more likely to end up in a job doing what they studied.” But how much of that is because the internship makes a big difference, and how much of that is because the people who have the foresight and put in the effort to get an internship are the people who are, basically, better employees.
Also, the articles anecdotal information made me roll my eyes. The people who can’t get jobs? They were from Western Kentucky University and some other regional state school. The schools they point out where most people do get jobs in their field? Tufts and Northeastern. 
The article says that STEM heavy degrees are not exempt, but then it goes on to talk about how a math-heavy business degree makes you more likely to end up working in your field than a business degree that is lighter on math.
And… Another complaint! The article discussed people who graduated from college between 2012 and 2021. So the only people in the study who are 10 years out are people who graduated the first few years of that – 2012 or 2013. Those years were still highly impacted by the financial crisis of 2008/2009.
Anyway, I do think the article is interesting and has some points to think about. But I think there’s so many caveat and confounding factors that it’s hard to take what it says at face value.
I agree with this. The comments to the article are also interesting, with lots of comments about the so-called woke agenda at colleges leading to useless degrees and underemployed graduates, and a suggestion that that’s karma. Both my kids went to LAC’s and the LAC’s certainly spin the story a different way, where the graduate doesn’t “fail to use her useless major” but rather uses the knowledge and skills learned at the LAC to think outside the box and end up in an unexpected but good place. I’ve seen lots of versions of that on the social media for my kids’ LAC’s. Obviously that’s also spin.
That is great for those students for whom it all works out, but I doubt that is the majority of underemployed.
I think I told this story somewhere before. I recently participated in an alumni mixer which was also a welcome event for new students (it was part of their new student orientation). I sat at a table with 5 or 6 other alumni from various majors, various degrees, various graduation years and we soon realized that…NOT A SINGLE ONE of us currently works in a field that aligns with our major. So I am not at all surprised. Also note: every single one of us is also very happy with our current employment situation, so it is not necessarily a bad thing 
I feel like I’m in the same boat as you. I wish I met more success stories like the ones I read about online. But my in-person experiences have been more stories about people who haven’t had the same luck. E.g. I knew a history major with a Phd that couldn’t get a job, so he went back to school for an education degree to teach in high school. He technically considered himself underemployed. I noticed that a majority of the high school teachers at my daughter’s school have advanced degrees, came from other fields, etc. I wonder how many of them were in the same boat as the person I knew. But this is just one example of the people I know. I’ve met many others too with different liberal arts degrees that have had underemployment issues. I don’t run in the upper echelons of society, I’m just your average middle class person, and so I might not be meeting the pool of people that had success stories with their undergraduate liberal arts degrees. But then I look at the presidential kids like the Bush and Obama kids, who’ve done well with their liberal arts degree. So from my vantage point, that feels like more of an exception than the norm.
Probably not terribly uncommon, at least in my experience as well. Many of my PhD program classmates worked as substitute teachers at private schools (which don’t require a teaching credential) and some as full time teachers following completion of their degree while they figured out what they wanted to do longterm, and some remained in those jobs longterm (since there are so few academic jobs, at least TT academic jobs, and teaching high school generally pays more than adjuncting). In addition, I am in a FB group for academics who have either left or are considering leaving academia and many consider (and some decide on) teaching high school. And quite a few of them PREFER teaching high school to working as university lecturers (both because of better pay, but also less stress), so often they are fairly happy with the decision.
I have been on multiple orientation-day panels at my alma mater preaching this exact thing. I am a big believer in less major-specific skills like learning to communicate, finding the root cause of problems and staying curious about things beyond your specific task at a job.
While me and other panelists tell stories of finding career success in fields outside our major - I believe we all did so in jobs that (at least initially) required college degrees. The article looks like it is making a different point - that almost half of grads are in jobs that didn’t require a degree at all.
And this is exactly what we told the new students who joined our table - focus on learning to think critically, communicate clearly, work in a team, lead with confidence and follow with humility, be curious, learn to be a learner, etc, etc…All things you can learn in college no matter what your major is.
I wouldn’t trade my LAC degree for the world. I use elements of it in everything I do. Someone like me would show up on the wrong side of these stats because I majored in government and have never worked in government, at least directly.
I dont think the study discused first jobs in major, just first jobs requiring a degree. Math. Majors often work in finance, for example
The sub-heading reads:
" Choice of major, internships and getting the right first job after graduation are critical to career paths, new data show"
The simple truth is that some majors are much more employable than others. For students majoring in high demand areas, they too need to be able to communicate, work in teams, lead, follow, and continue learning. They just have in-demand employable skills on top of everything else.
TBH, I do wonder about many other degree paths that are setting up students for quite a shock as they strive to secure positions with companies looking to hire new grads with resumes featuring “critical thinker” , “communicate clearly”, and “curious learner” as leads.
This. I went to grad school for a career path. For various reasons (most likely of which was I just didn’t take it as seriously as I should have, didn’t get internships etc), I ended up underemployed in finance. By the time I got my act together, I moved up quickly (in a totally different career track), and then moved for spouses job relocation. Took years off to raise kids, and then was underemployed again. Again, I moved up quickly and am thrilled where I landed. I didn’t work a day in the grad school path but I’m convinced it opened doors for me in promotions in other careers. At the end of the day, I didn’t have any linear path, but I’m successful.
Here are my anecdotal stories about people with college degrees starting out careers underemployed.
Story 1: Graduated with a degree in art & computer animation around 2008. Had a job but was laid off within a few months. Worked for about 5 years doing absolute menial labor, but kept his hand in art/animation side projects for friends, family, community groups, etc. Eventually got a job in field at a start up company but he took it at a salary about 1/4 of market rate, by 2016 he’d worked his way up to almost 1/2 market rate. Has stayed with them and now is high-level manager of the (successful) company making very good money.
Story 2: another friend graduated 2008 with teaching degree. Couldn’t get a job teaching and worked menial jobs for about 5 years. Went back to school for a grad degree in educational technology. Kept getting low paying jobs that were temporary contracts. Eventually started his own business doing something he loves but is always in the edge financially and it doesn’t “require a degree” (although I think the education & skills learned through the degree are helpful).
Story 3: My husband recently hired a newly graduated student from an LAC (degree was in a science) for a job as a lab tech that doesn’t require a college degree. But the worker is amazing and better than anyone else in the lab (some of whom have college degrees and some of whom don’t). He is already discussing how this new hire can move into either a design engineer position or a more managerial position in the lab with more responsibility, both of which require a college degree.
The key factor is the worker—they work hard, learn quickly, are inquisitive, go beyond what is asked, etc. The college degree means they are in position to move up without complaint from HR, and the background from science classes means they can learn the technical aspects more quickly if they want to go in the engineer direction. The other people in the lab with college degrees (also in science fields) who aren’t going anywhere don’t show the same drive and skills. 
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The people in the article who are underemployed seem to have general degrees and there wasn’t an indication that they have a particular job or field they are trying to get into and can’t, just that they would like to have a job that uses their college degree and maybe that is more stable/higher paying?
I think people do better if they have skills and drive, but also a more specific vision. Rather than applying for 100 jobs just because they are there and require a degree, trying to pin down more specifically what they want to do and focus on building those skills & contacts.
Both schools essentially require students to gain experience outside the classroom. No “Ivory Tower” mentality there. Not surprising that their students find jobs in their fields.
I actually think this is a really important experience for students to hear. It’s not always linear, it’s not always as expected or planned, but that doesn’t mean it can’t work out great in the end.
It certainly can. But it doesn’t for nearly half of college grads, apparently, anecdotes aside
My outlook on college and jobs is much like my outlook on any number of choices in life — I don’t think we are relegated to one “right” choice. There could be any number of potential schools, majors, careers, houses and even love interests etc that might be good fits. If you go into each of these choices with confidence and a positive attitude, you may find eventually that it feels like it was the thing you were meant for. But if you try it and it doesn’t work out, you can always pivot. That’s usually easier when you’re younger but it’s possible.
What’s sad is when kids make those choices based on someone else’s expectations (parents) etc. And then they’re left to figure out how to unravel their choices when they want to pivot. I knew a girl who did everything her parents expected: got into Ivy, was successful there, then went to a top law school, got all the right internships, landed the “perfect” career and within a year or two, she was burnt out from nonstop travel and billable hours so much so that she “chose” to be underemployed doing temp work. The sooner they learn to make choices because it’s what THEY want, the better. Not saying guidance isn’t warranted. I tell my kids to pick something that is employable and has a market. But other than that, it’s their choice. Mistakes are inevitable, everyone probably will need to pivot in some way or another, but I don’t ever want them to say, I would never have done that if it wasn’t for you (unless it’s good of course!)