A matter of degrees: half of all college grads underemployed

You feel like you’re overqualified for your job? Worried that your resume is being rejected because you’re too highly educated? Are you bagging groceries while you and a coworker discuss Flaubert and Proust’s views on the passage of time? You are not alone. According to a Center for College Affordability and Productivity report [h/t USA Today], there are twice as many college graduates in the workforce than there are jobs that require college degrees. That means half of all college grads are doing work they didn’t need $80,000 of debt to get.

“‘There are going to be an awful lot of disappointed people because a lot of them are going to end up as janitors,’ [lead author of the report Richard] Vedder says.”

Disappointing, indeed, especially since our society puts so much pressure on students to go to college. So we should all throw our away our and send our children to trade schools, right? Wrong. College graduates still made nearly twice as much as those holding only a high school degree, according to the study. But for their sake don’t let them get a liberal arts degree or they may end up working in a factory in China.

Leave a Reply

Click here to cancel reply.

Name (required)

Email (will not be published) (required)

Website

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail