A recent study found that nearly half of college graduates work in high school-level jobs, such as retail or food service.
The study, conducted by the Burning Glass Institute and the Strada Institute for the Future of Work, also found that 52% of university graduates suffer from underemployment a year after graduation.
The report explained that “underemployment” refers to “four-year college graduates working in jobs that do not typically require a bachelor’s degree.”
The survey found that “73% of graduates who began their careers were underemployed and remained so for 10 years after completing their college studies, making them at this point 3.5 times more likely to be underemployed than those who started in a college-level job.”
“A recent graduate working a college-level job typically earns about 88% more than a high school diploma holder, while an underemployed graduate typically earns only about 25% more than someone with no education beyond high school. This It leaves unemployed graduates in a weaker financial position when starting their careers, especially those with significant student loan debt.
The cost-to-degree and degree-to-job ratio is also an issue for college graduates.
Asr Times reports:
A June 2023 analysis by Campus shows that an associate's degree costs about $11,600 per year, including room and board, for a full-time student. That's $23,200 for this two-year degree.
The average annual cost of attending a four-year public college or university with room and board was $21,035. That's $84,140 for a bachelor's degree.The most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the average annual salary for someone with a college degree is $48,240. For those with a bachelor's degree, the cost is $68,736.
For bachelor's degrees, data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that business degrees are the No. 1 major (19 percent) among today's college students. Data collected by Coursera shows that the average annual salary for someone with a bachelor's degree in business administration is $65,000.
The report, published Thursday, is based on data on the jobs of 60 million people in the United States, including 10.8 million people with bachelor's degrees.
