The Odds Are Stacked Against Today’s College Grads

If you’re in college or recently graduated, your financial prospects don’t look very good, according to The Associated Press.

Half of all recent graduates under 25 are jobless or underemployed, and many who are working are doing so in low-wage positions that don’t utilize their degrees, an analysis of government data for the AP has found. For those lucky enough to have landed a job in their field of study, the outlook still seems dim. Students are on the hook for an average of $20,000 in loan debt, which they’ll have to pay off on a starting salary in a still-sluggish economy.

Technological advancements and outsourcing further compound the problems that young graduates face. “By some studies, up to 95 percent of positions lost during the economic recovery occurred in middle-income occupations such as bank tellers, the type of job not expected to return in a more high-tech age,” says the AP. Even with these disturbing trends, colleges have decided to increase their tuitions and fees.

Students and graduates are realizing that hard work does not always lead to financial success, and that the jobs their educations were supposed to prepare them for are increasingly scarce. Yet the political establishment carries on, blind to the flaws in its economic solutions and, more fundamental, to its denial of the American dream to today’s youth. — Posted by Christian Neumeister

The Associated Press via Cleveland.com:

The college class of 2012 is in for a rude welcome to the world of work.

A weak labor market already has left half of young college graduates either jobless or underemployed in positions that don’t fully use their skills and knowledge.

Young adults with bachelor’s degrees are increasingly scraping by in lower-wage jobs — waiter or waitress, bartender, retail clerk or receptionist, for example — and that’s confounding their hopes a degree would pay off despite higher tuition and mounting student loans.

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