Most College Graduates Are Underemployed

A recent report looking at federal data on more than 60 million workers in the U.S. found that 52 percent of recent college graduates are in jobs that don’t require a college degree. Even more concerning, almost 45 percent of them remain underemployed a decade after graduation.  

The report judged jobs not requiring a bachelor’s degree as those where more than half of employees in the role don’t have such a degree. Using that metric, the report found that the “majority of graduates, 73 percent, who were underemployed in their first jobs remained so a decade after they graduated.” The authors of the report concluded that colleges need to do more to prepare graduates to face the real world.

Both the report and the article I found it in sidestep the issue of whether so many students need to go to college in the first place. Many of the college administrators quoted say (of course) that the college experience confers benefits beyond increased income. As one educator explained, the concern should be not only whether graduates are underemployed, but whether they are in jobs that offer a “sense of meaning and purpose.”

Unfortunately, I don’t recall ever having a mortgage company that cared whether my job gave me meaning and purpose. An underemployed college graduate facing both living expenses and expensive education loans likely will lose any sense of meaning from even the best job. Colleges need to do what most businesses do — cut expenses and adapt their product to the realities of the current market. In the interim, those of us advising young people should counsel them to seriously consider education that is within their means, whether that be less prestigious schools that offer a solid education or CTE schools that match skills with market needs.