Outlook bleak for college graduates

A couple of days after I write about the higher education bubble, the NY Times reports that outlook is bleak even for recent college grads:

Employment rates for new college graduates have fallen sharply in the last two years, as have starting salaries for those who can find work. What’s more, only half of the jobs landed by these new graduates even require a college degree, reviving debates about whether higher education is “worth it” after all.
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This may be a waste of a college degree, but it also displaces the less-educated workers who would normally take these jobs.
“The less schooling you had, the more likely you were to get thrown out of the labor market altogether,” said Mr. Sum, noting that unemployment rates for high school graduates and dropouts are always much higher than those for college graduates. “There is complete displacement all the way down.”
Meanwhile, college graduates are having trouble paying off student loan debt, which is at a median of $20,000 for graduates of classes 2006 to 2010.

The Chronicle adds more to this discussion from another perspective:

A report by Rutgers University, "Unfulfilled Expectations: Recent College Graduates Struggle in a Troubled Economy," says that 53 percent of college graduates from 2006 to 2010 have full-time jobs, while 21 percent are in graduate school, 12 percent are working part time, and 9 percent are unemployed.

Awful, the situation is.  I hope we will put an end to this soon.

Graduation: celebrate or commiserate?

I routinely warn any student who wanders into my office for advice that there will not be any job waiting for them when they graduate.
I tell them that from the summer after the sophomore years, they need to do internships/part time work in career-related fields.
If they seem to be ready for the message, then I tell them that the way we do higher education now is a scam, a ponzi scheme, and that they need to make sure they don't get fooled by all the fancy talk about how college degrees are the sure tickets to economic prosperity.

And then I wonder why I am not popular!

More on the monetary worth of college

Adding my growing list!

Via Richard Florida

My only hassle with this chart is how it refers to "college costs" when it is strictly about private colleges.

My hypothesis is that the gap exists, and is widening, for graduates of public universities also. But, the gap will not be this wide.

Graduates Equal Growth. Yeah, right!

If anybody ever reads this blog, well, it will be clear that I am not a rah-rah fan of college for everybody. Having this view while being a college professor puts me in a tiny minority, I suppose. Not that I am with a solid majority on this topic outside the academic walls either. Therefore, I feel much better when educators write essays skeptical of college for all, or about how China and India are producing college graduates. Such as this one in Change, which is published by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching:

President Obama wants everyone to go to college. This is an estimable goal: as he and everyone knows—including any high school drop-out—education is critically important for individual success. Moreover, college can still open people’s minds and feed their souls. But as a solution to recession? Forget it.

The author, Alison Wolf, is a chair professor of Public Sector Management at Kings College, London. Professor Wolf writes that:

There are three reasons why we cannot simply assume that a year in college, or a college degree, automatically makes everyone first more skilled, and then more productive, and so more prosperous. The first is that education is about sorting people out, not just about teaching and learning. The second is that not all degrees are created equal. And the third is the nature of the job market.

No different from my op-ed, eh!

Cousin Travis graduates!

No country for new graduates :-(