Report Claims More Than Half of Recent Four-Year College Graduates are Underemployed
“Colleges and universities, states and our country can do more and should do more to help students prepare for the critical transition from college to the labor market”
This is very bad news for higher ed. If a college degree doesn’t guarantee a good job, why pay for one?
Inside Higher Ed reports:
More Than Half of Recent 4-Year College Grads Underemployed
More than half of recent four-year college graduates, 52 percent, are underemployed a year after they graduate, according to a new report from Strada Institute for the Future of Work and the Burning Glass Institute. A decade after graduation, 45 percent of them still don’t hold a job that requires a four-year degree.
Those stark data points were highlighted in a report released today called “Talent Disrupted.” The report outlines employment outcomes for recent bachelor’s degree earners and explores the factors that contribute to their short- and long-term underemployment. It drew on federal data sources, job ads and online résumé and career profiles for more than 60 million workers.
The report defines underemployment as holding a job that doesn’t require a bachelor’s degree, signified by at least half of employees in that role not having one.
“Colleges and universities, states and our country can do more and should do more to help students prepare for the critical transition from college to the labor market,” Stephen Moret, president and CEO of the Strada Education Foundation, said at a media briefing Tuesday.
The report found that graduates who started their careers at a below-college-level job typically stayed underemployed for years afterward. The majority of graduates, 73 percent, who were underemployed in their first jobs remained so a decade after they graduated.
In contrast, 79 percent of graduates who started off in a college-level job continued to hold jobs at that level five years after graduating. And of the graduates who held college-level jobs five years after graduating, 86 percent had college-level jobs a decade out.
Moret said that first jobs are extremely “high stakes” because the outcomes are so “sticky.”
“To me, the single most important takeaway for both individuals and colleges is that for most college graduates, their first postcollege job plays a pivotal role in setting the trajectory of their entire career,” he said.
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Comments
I’m not surprised. When I was interviewing candidates for a secretarial job a few years ago, every candidate had a baccalaureate degree in fields like criminal justice and psychology from state universities, yet couldn’t find employment in their fields.
This deserves closer study.
It has been that way for over 50 years. A college degree indicates that a person is trainable. Most jobs do not directly corelate to a specific college degree.
Underemployed and unable to pay back student loans, and demanding taxpayer bailout, because they took soft courses that employers don’t value.
Majoring in a “studies” course is a guarantee to be underemployed or unemployed.
underemployed and unemployable.
How many tictocs or the like have kids complaining about working 40 hour weeks, not having time to party like they have been used to, claiming that early morning meetings are undoable because it cuts into “me time”.
How many resumes have pronouns and SJW creds in them, signaling to an employer that he/she/it is high maintenance and grievance minded?
How many complaining videos have I seen about wardrobe complaints – “my boss just told me that my haltertop is not appropriate for the office.
How dare She slut-shame me/He focus on my body!”
My college alumni officer that solicits for the endowment sent out email to alums, indicating in their email signature their preferred pronouns just to show how woke they are. I wondered how many alumni who were undecided about making a donation just decided not to donate.
How many of them have degrees in fields that people actually are hiring for? And what kind of work ethic do they have? The first thing candidates at my work place ask is whether they can work from home, followed by pay and benefits–it seems that the actual work is far down the list of their concerns.
Their life is their actual career — you’re just a job.
Given the almost total lack of company loyalty to their employees, then yes. it’s just a job.
Note that “Personnel” is now called “Human Resources”. I see that phrase and I think of someone goes to a shelf, takes down a new human to replace the one that burnt out. Take the burnt out one out of their cube, insert the new one, and point to their terminal, where key click count equates to work done.
the feds have punished many a company or even the taxpayers for not hiring people that were not even qualified for the job
go look up big blue city “laws” on getting their dei full filled
many an applicant is looking how to play the system
that used to be limited to the ever giving government
but now that companies are punished for their sjw infractions
many applicants know that they are on a mission…
a mission to $ue if not bowed /cowed to
They should have separated out the results according to students’ college majors. I doubt that so many students with degrees in engineering, accounting, statistics, chemistry, etc are underemployed.
On the other hand, those with degrees in Afro, gender studies, history, English, sociology, etc are unlikely to find jobs in those areas. In fact, those with grievance studies degrees would be better off without them.
“Did you have a job during high school?”
I’d guess that that would be pretty good predictor of those who later on used their time wisely in college. And don’t end up “underemployed.”
If colleges required applicants to work for 6 or 12 months before enrolling — again, I’d imagine that those students would be more likely to use their time in college more wisely
(Btw who gets to define who is and who is not “underemployed”? If you have a PhD in molecular biology but Starbucks is the only place to hire you, then you’re employed. Not underemployed. Not overemployed. You’re employed.)
The colleges themselves would make sure that students did not waste their time while in college
if non-performing student loans weren’t guaranteed by the government.
Good heavens, who could ever came up with such a ridiculous system?!? that incentivizes that the colleges shuffle through any warm body that they can find.
The study and the commentary on it seems to assume that a poor first job out of college causes other poor jobs. I think that’s confusing cause and effect: A useless degree or a troublesome transcript (low grades, dropped classes, in and out of school) causes the graduate to get a poor first job. Do well on that job and the next job will be better, but it you’re the type of person who does not apply yourself or who can’t be punctual, you get a poor transcript but that isn’t limiting your job opportunities after the first. Your job performance is. If you could somehow have a stellar college transcript even though you are lazy and not too bright, that only gets you into one good job, and then you’ll be fired from it.
Of course, this only applies to private sector jobs with competent management. If your manager can’t tell good job performance from bad job performance, it’s probably a$$kissing skills that gets you promoted, and incompetence only indirectly affects your job – when because of all the incompetence, the company is going broke and _someone_ must be fired to reduce the payroll.
And in government jobs, the manager may or may not be able to tell good job performance, but has little reason to care! These jobs tend to become filled with people with great credentials, great political skills, and lousy performance.
Of the last three years of medical students, residents and fellows that I have had in training, I would say none of them were prepared for the rigor of professional practice from the standpoint of having any clue that a patient’s life is in their hands, and there is no “do-over” in medicine. They make very elementary mistakes and as the attending faculty that is me. It’s also my duty to tell them step by step what went wrong, why, and how they should correct the error(s) to avoid such in the future. Problem is the response I get is denial, excuses, immaturity and threats and DYKWIA, as if any of those make any difference to a grieving family. Then I get called on the carpet by some idiot ASSociate Dean and told that I am being too “difficult” with my trainees. I had to swallow my pride a lot when I was in training, because you are always learning and you can make mistakes. One thing is you always owe up to them, learn from them and never make that same mistake again. It’s depressing.