53% of Recent College Grads Are Jobless or Underemployed—How?

Because affluent, well-connected kids got humanities degrees at Ivy league schools and then used their connections and the prestige of the school to secure high paying jobs, and kids from blue-collar backgrounds didn't realize they can't do the same thing with a humanities degree from the local college.

Because kids who should have gone to trade schools or entered the workforce after high school were convinced they had to go to some college, so they wasted a few years studying something they're not good at and don't care about, so they didn't learn anything to make themselves more employable than they were before they started.

It's much easier to get a job as a college student with no experience than as a college graduate with no experience. If you don't do some work in your field (PT, internship, volunteering, summer program, whatever) you've wasted a one of the best opportunities you'll ever have.

I recently turned 20 years old and I'm not in college nor do I plan to finish a degree (and if it wasn't for individuals Peter Thiel, I might still be making a $100,000 mistake). I'm a fairly normal guy, I've been out of high school for 3 years now and I'm making slightly less than Bureau of Labor Statistic's 2010 Median Income for 'Software Developers', which I believe is more than enough to not be considered underemployed.

I see a lot of psychic pain in my peers about how hard work is or the labor market is so difficult, but to be frank the failures I see are directly attributable to plain laziness in a generation addicted to easy and inane pleasure.

I'm afraid young people of today are losing the real virtues of life like living with passion and taking responsibility for who you are. The ability to make something out of yourself and feeling joy in life is more alive today than in any other point in human history.

I see a lot of active rejection of the ideals of hacker culture, perhaps epitomized by my generation's obsession with video games and fake work. This is really a shame, as one thing that comes out of hacker culture is not a feeling of defeatism, but rather a feeling of a real kind of exuberance about your work and life. Your work is yours to create. I've read the college labor statistics with some interest, even fear. But when I read them, I can't help but think that something essential about our generation and present technological zeitgeist is being left out. As if somehow our work is simply just a confluence of forces far beyond our control, framing college graduates as fragmented or marginalized which opens up a world of excuses.

From Chaitin to Stallman, when hackers talk about the meaning of work, they're not talking about abstract decisions, they're talking about you reading this post, doing something that has concrete consequences, making decisions and accepting the consequences. It may be true that there are seven billion people on the planet, never the less, your work matters in material terms, as well as to others.

In short, I'd encourage any young person my age to not write themselves off as a victim of societal forces. It's always our decision who we are and what we do with our lives.

* Highest unemployment rates by major *

1. Clinical psychology 19.5%

2. Miscellaneous fine arts 16.2%

3. United States history 15.1%

4. Library science 15.0%

5. (tie) Military technologies; educational psychology 10.9%

* Lowest unemployment rates by major *

1. Medical technology technician 1.4%

2. Nursing 2.2%

3. Treatment therapy professions 2.6%

4. Medical assisting services 2.9%

5. Agriculture production & management 3.0%

ref:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-57325132/25-college-m...

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-57324669/25-college-m...

I send daily e-mails about interesting companies with entry level jobs. When people unsubscribe, they sometimes leave comments like: "These jobs aren't relevant to my interests." or "Jobs are irrelevant to my location."

Very few students are able to realize that they are irrelevant to the job market. If you're not willing to develop new skills, adjust your attitude, and change locations, you're going to be one of the 53% (unless you got it right from the start and majored in Engineering).

As I said then, it's worth noting that according to this analysis, we're at an all time high of 53% jobless or underemployed, but the all time low was 41% (right before the dot com crash). 4/10 vs 5/10. Oh no.

With only two data points (and some probable error estimates), I don't think we're looking at enough of a trend to hang a narrative on.

Also, as this article notes, it's suspicious that a significantly higher percentage of college graduates under 25 are unemployed compared to all people under 25, considering that without an age limit the ratio is close to 2:1 the other way. Without actual data and without a plausible mechanism of action, I'll remain skeptical.

> Students confuse avocation with vocation.

> Students are foolish to IGNORE the realities of the job market for their majors as we assume more debt.

> College doesn't teach networking.

> College doesn't teach employable skills. Theory AND Practice.

> Students don't have realistic expectations of their first jobs after college.

> Even a little investment or initiative in learning something practical - like SQL, Drupal, or Sharepoint - can go a long way to opening doors to jobs students actually want.

> Not everyone needs to be a business or engineering major, but we, as a students, need think about life after college more seriously than we have.

I certainly wish my education had been down this path. I wouldn't have wasted 10 years working for other people only to learn that if I really wanted to achieve my goals I was going to have to work for myself.

Sir Ken Robinson (check out his TED video on creativity) talks about how there's academic inflation. Now most jobs require a master's whereas 5 years ago a bachelor's was enough. With the rise of vocational schools and online ones like Phoenix University, the number of college degrees has gone up, but jobs have not gone up proportionally.

I am personally of the belief that the education system is overpriced and underperforming, but I don't want to see it become a trade-school system either. I'd prefer that college students have the opportunity to follow their interests and be exposed to a range of thought and ideas. After graduating , I'd prefer they have a chance to find their niche without being hammered by student loan payments. I do want people entering college to be clear eyed about the idea that they will have to find their niche.

"Hard skills" can often only be developed through experience, or, as the article notes, through alternate education paths, or, as this community stresses, through independent online learning. Since this is so, why major in a "hard skill?"

You have your entire life to learn hard skills. You can do it in the summer. You can do it in your spare time. You can do it while working at Starbucks. You can do it one class a semester at a time. But you don't have your whole life to sit around a table and discuss Vergil. I say, major in something "useless."

I'm not saying this in the sense of, "critical thinking should be taught in public schools". The issue is rarely does the average person look at an important decision with any real amount of thought. Yes, person. Not teenager.

When I was a teenager (tail-end of dot-com boom) there was this implicit assumption that I was going to go to the best school I could afford and get accepted into -- loans be damned -- and that was it. That's what friends would tell me, my parents, television, teachers and my guidance counselor. Everyone simply rolled with it.

I didn't. I got into stellar schools, but I didn't get any full scholarships. MIT and WPI would've ultimately required a loan large enough to buy the house I grew up in at its current market value. That alone was enough to scare me shitless. My sister was at Cornell racking up that kind of debt as it was, but didn't think anything of it. I sure as hell did. I looked at my job prospects where I lived. I looked at salaries. I thought the evaluation of tech stocks was absolutely ludicrous* and wasn't sustainable. I went to a state school, paid cash thanks to working nearly full-time, withdrew second semester and planned out my alternate approach. My parents kicked me out of the house and everyone thought I was an imbecile.

They don't now. However it wasn't fate that got me where I was. I sit down, think about my situation, and figure out not only what I want to change but how I'm going to go about accomplishing it. I do it every year. I do it every time I don't like something with my current situation. It's not that people are inept. I'll have friends over that are displeased with X, and I just pelt them with questions. I ask what they don't like, what they're going to do about it, and then have them prove that plan is feasible to see if it'll float or if it needs revision. They go home with a plan, and eventually they act on it one way or another and shit gets better.

Most people would be a lot better off if they just had someone blow holes in their plans, to ensure they have a decent plan in the first place.

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* And thought my parents' notion of the house doubling in value every seven years until the end of time was nuts since I was 12 (early 90s). "Dad, does your salary double every seven years?" "... go the hell to your room."

This guy pretty much sums up the failings of the system without saying it. Academia is out of touch with the market it is suppose to supply workers for.

procerus 3 hours ago I think most people know very well why they may not have a job - perhaps they're basically doing everything right but just haven't got lucky yet or applied for enough jobs for one to catch. Or perhaps, like me, they're basically unemployable and have no relevant skills or experience. I know that, and I'm not surprised that I'm at a low level in work. My degree is broadly useless, I got no industry experience/internships while in education, I have no other tempting skills like math, languages or programming, and also I'm a pretty weird, socially awkward person who doesn't know how to make people warm to him.

I only realised all that fairly recently and a bit too late to deal with while still in education, I should have caught it sooner when I went to the college careers presentations and there were a lot of accounting, tech, engineering, finance companies there. All through school I was fed ideas about how clever I was and how going to college is totally badass and I’ll walk into 50-60k jobs as soon as I graduate. Whether the teachers or my parents honestly believed it or not, it was bs, and quite damaging bs. I did what I was led to believe was necessary (by parents who had never gone to college and teachers who were clueless) and that was not nearly enough. Other people noticed what to do though, so good on them. My mind was elsewhere, never really focussed on a career and worried obsessively over my grades, this is my fault and I realize I shouldn't blame parents/teachers.

Now I am at point of really low self esteem because the sudden realization of my errors over the past 4 years comes to light and the fact is that I am not that clever if I can;t pick up economic/job trends and instead have my head in the clouds.

If you have a 17/18 yr old you need to sit them down and have long deep conversations about what it takes to become financially independent and you need to keep having those conversations until they say "mom, dad, I want to gain this skill and I can see from job adverts that I will be paid $xx.xxxx can we discuss what further education or job training/experience I will need to achieve this"

It is very important in my view that an 18 year old has at least 1 job and career path laid out before they move on from high school, they can change it as they grow older but at least they have something to fall back on. It is really scary how many students have literally no idea what they want to do once they finish school.

How are so many unemployed? Creative writing degrees, that's how.