Many With New
College Degree Find the Job Market Humbling
Published: May 18, 2011 - New York Times
The individual stories are familiar. The chemistry major tending bar. The
classics major answering phones. The Italian studies major sweeping aisles at
Wal-Mart.
Now evidence is emerging that the damage wrought by the sour economy is more
widespread than just a few careers led astray or postponed. Even for college
graduates — the people who were most protected from the slings and arrows of recession
— the outlook is rather bleak.
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.
“I have friends with the same degree as me, from a worse school, but because
of who they knew or when they happened to graduate, they’re in much better
jobs,” said Kyle Bishop, 23, a 2009 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh who
has spent the last two years waiting tables, delivering beer, working at a
bookstore and entering data. “It’s more about luck than anything else.”
The median starting salary for students graduating from four-year colleges in
2009 and 2010 was $27,000, down from $30,000 for those who entered the work
force in 2006 to 2008, according to a study
released on Wednesday by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce
Development at Rutgers University. That is a decline of 10 percent, even before
taking inflation into account.
Of course, these are the lucky ones — the graduates who found a job. Among
the members of the class of 2010, just 56 percent had held at least one job by
this spring, when the survey was conducted. That compares with 90 percent of
graduates from the classes of 2006 and 2007. (Some have gone for further
education or opted out of the labor force, while many are still pounding the
pavement.)
Even these figures understate the damage done to these workers’ careers. Many
have taken jobs that do not make use of their skills; about only half of recent
college graduates said that their first job required a college degree.
The choice of major is quite important. Certain majors had better luck
finding a job that required a college degree, according to an analysis by Andrew
M. Sum, an economist at Northeastern University, of 2009 Labor Department data
for college graduates under 25.
Young graduates who majored in education and teaching or engineering were
most likely to find a job requiring a college degree, while area studies majors
— those who majored in Latin American studies, for example — and humanities
majors were least likely to do so. Among all recent education graduates, 71.1
percent were in jobs that required a college degree; of all area studies majors,
the share was 44.7 percent.
An analysis by The New York Times of Labor Department data about college
graduates aged 25 to 34 found that the number of these workers employed in food
service, restaurants and bars had risen 17 percent in 2009 from 2008, though the
sample size was small. There were similar or bigger employment increases at gas
stations and fuel dealers, food and alcohol stores, and taxi and limousine
services.
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.
Mr. Bishop, the Pittsburgh graduate, said he is “terrified” of the effects
his starter jobs might have on his ultimate career, which he hopes to be in
publishing or writing. “It looks bad to have all these short-term jobs on your
résumé, but you do have to pay the bills,” he said, adding that right now his
student loan debt was over $70,000.
Many graduates will probably take on more student debt. More than 60 percent
of those who graduated in the last five years say they will need more formal
education to be successful.
“I knew there weren’t going to be many job prospects for me until I got my
Ph.D.,” said Travis Patterson, 23, a 2010 graduate of California State
University, Fullerton. He is working as an administrative assistant for a
property management company and studying psychology in graduate school. While it
may not have anything to do with his degree, “it helps pay my rent and tuition,
and that’s what matters.”
Going back to school does offer the possibility of joining the labor force
when the economy is better. Unemployment rates are also generally lower for
people with advanced schooling.
Those who do not go back to school may be on a lower-paying trajectory for
years. They start at a lower salary, and they may begin their careers with
employers that pay less on average or have less room for growth.
“Their salary history follows them wherever they go,” said Carl Van Horn, a
labor economist at Rutgers. “It’s like a parrot on your shoulder, traveling with
you everywhere, constantly telling you ‘No, you can’t make that much
money.’ ”
And while young people who have weathered a tough job market may shy from
risks during their careers, the best way to nullify an unlucky graduation date
is to change jobs when you can, says Till von Wachter, an economist at Columbia.
“If you don’t move within five years of graduating, for some reason you get
stuck where you are. That’s just an empirical finding,” Mr. von Wachter said.
“By your late 20s, you’re often married, and have a family and have a house. You
stop the active pattern of moving jobs.”