1 in 2 new graduates jobless or underemployed

Parents Forum
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<p>The above assumes the graduate concerned can get a job at or above the “average salary”…which has been a really big if according to that article. </p>

<p>Moreover, average means that there are plenty of folks who are earning well-below that amount…and may be skewed upward or downward for many reasons that may or may not be known to us. </p>

<p>In some ways, you’re sounding like some oblivious older relatives whose perspectives on this are skewed from living in upper-middle class suburban enclaves and don’t understand the reality of those who aren’t part of their immediate social circle/daily living environment. </p>

<p>Moreover, I’m not sure you’re correct regarding late '90s college grads like myself as we graduated into a hot dotcom economy where salaries were high even while most of my classmates and I graduated with trifling or even no undergrad debt…especially those who had near/full-ride scholarships like myself or those who attended their in-state state universities. </p>

<p>One troubling trend I noticed with college students after my graduation was a greater proportion of their undergrad costs/FA were taken up by loans…not scholarships/FA grants. This was confirmed by several parents who had kids my age and younger and by several acquaintances who worked in Financial aid offices of local universities at the time…both state and private. </p>

<p>The numbers even back in the early '00s terrified me…and I was not the one with the loans…and the numbers/bureaucratic hoops/terms have gotten worse with each passing year.</p>

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<p>Ema – You’re in DETROIT.</p>

<p>That’s one of the areas most affected by the economic downturn, and you’re stuck there because of your boyfriend’s job.</p>

<p>I can understand your concerns about being financially dependent on your boyfriend, but most likely, this is largely due to your geographic location. If the relationship were to end, you could (and probably should) move to a different city – and there, you would probably find it much easier to support yourself.</p>

<p>Something similar happened to my sister a long time ago. She followed her boyfriend to an extremely remote place where he had a good job lined up with a government agency. She eventually found work there, but it paid poorly, and she would not have been able to live on her own income. But later, when living in other parts of the country, she had no difficulty supporting herself.</p>

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<p>Can’t remember who asked about job prospects for past grads. D1 was a '10 sports management/marketing grad. Got a job right after graduation. Gasp…she does, however, live in middle America! :wink: She was able to snag one of those elusive sports management jobs due to an unpaid internship with a professional sports team the previous summer which made her resume stand out. She and fiance bought a house as it was cheaper than rent after 8 months of working. They both would like to come closer to the Cities but they know they need experience first. She has been off of our gravy train since graduation. :wink: It is a process but both attacked the job search with their eyes wide open. D2 will be '13 grad and has been employed in her major with a large national company since last summer and part time while going to school full time. The job was found through the University job placement office. Both Ds feel their college networking really paid off.</p>

<p>Locally, a friend who owns his own company recently advertised a full time entry level business job. Starting salary was $40,000 and all benefits paid. The listing said preference would be given to a '13 grad or recent grads from the local university. The job was quickly filled.</p>

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<p>Cobrat-in most areas of the country you can get a data entry, nothing job that will earn $24,000/year–that’s $11.50/hour. That would be the same as what I had (percentage) when I graduated. It is about choices that many kids are making. Of the many kids we know that have graduated in the past few years, ALL of them found jobs in their field and none of them are living with their parents. Some of them had to move away from where they wanted to work, knowing that it was a stepping stone. One kid just moved to a town of 2500 people but working for a major international corporation. He figures he will get 2-3 years of experience there and apply for jobs back home within the company. You do what you have to do. He was also smart enough to figure out that the $5000/year less that he was making at that job netted out WAY better than what he would have gotten in the big city for the same job because apartments in the small town were next to nothing. He has a nice apartment, no roommates for less than his car payment.</p>

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<p>Most areas of the country? Really? That’s odd considering that a lot of friends/acquaintances who did such types of gigs on a temp or full-time basis have been looking for such jobs. </p>

<p>As for expectations of relocation, that’s assumes the student/family can afford relocation costs and in many cases…a car if they’re in areas with poor/nonexistent public transportation. </p>

<p>I don’t know about you…but I know plenty of families whose economic situation is such that buying a $3000 or less reliable used car would be a substantial hardship…and that’s before accounting for gas prices and mandated insurance. </p>

<p>Then again, I have lived in areas where car ownership wasn’t assumed or necessary and attended college in a town where not having a car does make getting around outside of the immediate area an ordeal due to public transportation being so poor it’s practically non-existent at the time. </p>

<p>One reason why that region was so economically depressed at the time was that if someone in financially constrained circumstances doesn’t have a car or lost it due to finances/car wearing out…they’re hobbled in looking for jobs as most working-class folks there were laid off when the local manufacturing firms left the region and they didn’t have the high education credentials/skills required for most jobs by the biggest local employer…my LAC.</p>

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<p>We aren’t talking about families, we are talking about single college students, big difference. Point being, $24,000 in student loans is NOT a burden to pay off any more than it was when we graduated from college.</p>

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<h1>1. Assuming you’re able to get a job which enables you to do that…something which is a big question according to that article and from my observations of many recent college grads. And a factor you seem to be ignoring.</h1>

<h1>2. Given that most fresh college grads don’t have independent sources of wealth…my bringing in families is apropos. Unless they’re lucky to have had substantial savings after college loans and other expenses…where are they going to get the money to relocate for a job and possibly required car/insurance/gas for the first few months right after graduation?</h1>

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<p>my Goodness if i hear one more over the hill baby boomer cry doom and gloom for their grandkids, etc., im gonna scream. Have a little positivity - spice girls reference.
and move over, retire and get out of the work force so the younger generations can get ahead.</p>

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<p>Would love to, but given most of us are mediocre by definition, I see a lots of colleagues’ and friends’ “mediocre” kids really struggling - employed in places like restaurants or going on to do their masters only because they didn’t land anything.
It appears to me when the vibrant post ww2 blue collar economy started collapsing due to imports, getting children a college education opened up a lot of opportunities. However, that paradigm is shifting too with the age of the internet, and we need other areas where the common man here has opportunities to command a substantial premium compared to the going rate elsewhere that s/he’s competing against.</p>

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<p>Actually, I think that many have delayed retirement or even come back to work after retirement because the stock market crash of 2008 thrashed their 401Ks…And now that boomers are not sure what governmental services will be available when they retire (SS? Medicare?–who knows what will be available in the future?), more will stay in the workplace to pile up more money.</p>

<p>Doesn’t look like the boomers will be getting off the employment stage for a little while…</p>

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<p>I’d be happy to move over and retire. The most senior person in my department who would have been my successor left to “be a real mom” since apparently mothers who go back to work after having children are fake moms. The next most senior person is in rehab. We love her to pieces- but she’s not getting promoted until she gets her life on track. The others are not ready to be promoted although with time and experience they could be.</p>

<p>But having just finished paying for my kids college- I can’t afford to retire yet. A little fact that let’sgetthis done would love to ignore- being a member of the sandwich generation with elderly parents with high and unreimbursed medical costs, kids to put through college, etc. I need to be working in my fifties and sixties to fund my retirement.</p>

<p>But otherwise you are welcome to my job anytime.</p>

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<p>[Retirement</a> fund to run dry earlier: trustees](<a href=“Yahoo Life: Latest News on Health, Wellness, Style, Fashion Trends and More”>Yahoo Life: Latest News on Health, Wellness, Style, Fashion Trends and More)
“The trustees said the Social Security fund for retirees will become insolvent in 2033. But it said the Medicare funds will run out in 2024, the same forecast as last year.”
We’re not immune from the Greek syndrome.</p>

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<p>“But having just finished paying for my kids college- I can’t afford to retire yet. A little fact that let’sgetthis done would love to ignore- being a member of the sandwich generation with elderly parents with high and unreimbursed medical costs, kids to put through college, etc. I need to be working in my fifties and sixties to fund my retirement.”</p>

<p>At your age I imaging that current students will have this problem tenfold on all fronts, except for many of us will also still be paying off our own student loans as well lol.</p>

<p>Actually, we’ll probably be like “the great recession generation”, in that there will be a huge shift in attitude towards spending friviously, not saving, urging our kids to go to college,…ect.</p>

<p>Baby boomer generation thought their parents were waay too conservative and decided to rebell, and take way too many risks. We will see that our parent’s took way too many risks and screwed things up, for us much more so than for them, and will beccome much more conservative as a result. Just a theory.</p>

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<p>Financial conservatism is already starting to get tossed out the window as credit has already started expanding.</p>

<p>Central Bankers generally inflate their way out of problems and we’re growing the Fed’s balance sheet exponentially to deal with the weak economic response to stimulus. That has the generational effect of wiping out savings which affects older folks because they have the savings. Unfortunately, trying to get wages to rise with deflationary global effects is like pushing on a string.</p>

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Best quote of the day. It seems like somebody has been spoonfed by the news media. The baby boomers faced similar problem back in 70s and 80s.</p>

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<p>The State Department has tons of unpaid interns working in the US and overseas during every semester and the summer.</p>

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<p>“We are being thrown under the bus by baby boomers.”</p>

<p>I find that so funny. I wonder when some of this generation will realize that they voted in 2008 to throw themselves under the bus and get dragged around the block. They thought they were voting themselves a bunch of freebies and fell for hopes and dreams. They were suckered in by a bunch of rhetoric and now they’ll get nothing but debt for generations…and lower chances for a decent job.</p>

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<p>Soccer guy, were you simply reinforcing the point? :D</p>

<p>It is interesting as a Gen-Xer to watch the millenials, a generation bigger than the boomers, begin to take them on. I’ve been noticing this for a bit, now, and I know they are starting to talk about this in politics classes on campuses. Very interesting.</p>

<p>When the millenials figure out how to mass the vote, they will push the political needle the same way the boomers have, and that will push policy, which will effect both generations, and, of course, us Xers, who have been aware of the boomer bullying for quite a while.</p>

<p>Boomers should be kinder to the millenials. They have more votes than you and they will drive policy in your golden, dependent years. Do yourselves a favor and build some goodwill. ;)</p>

<p>It is completely disingenious to act as if the economic downturn, the loss of the middle class as we knew it, is the same as it once was. These kids face battles never faced before, and a debt level, both personal and public, that no generation has ever faced. It’s a different economy and a different, global situation, driven partially by policy… to favor off-shoring of jobs, to not tarrif, to go to war after war. For such an anti-war “generation” the boomer presidents have put us in more war debt than anyone could have imagined. </p>

<p>Good luck to all job seekers, of all ages. As an Xer, I think the millenials have worked hard and will save more, and I don’t hold it against them that they are having trouble finding livable wage jobs, right now, anymore than I hold the boomers responsible for having to work so long and failing to save for retirement, adequately. Seems as if both of you got stuck by the crash.</p>

<p>ETA: Busdriver, I think you hit the nail on the head as to why soooo many college students were so enamored of Ron Paul, even if the elders thought he was a fringe guy.</p>

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<p>^^Yep, plenty of war debt, but so much debt for so many other things. It’s like all these guys can do is spend with no thought to who has to pay for it eventually. Seems like it shouldn’t pit us against the other, so many class wars, age wars, it’s your fault…that since we all care about the older and the younger generations, that we should start making solutions that actually have a chance at working. But of course, to most politicians, it’s really all about keeping power, not making things work.</p>

<p>As far as soccerguys post, it’s interesting, because is it even legal for a private company to get unpaid/no credit interns? Yet it is legal for the govt to get people to work for free?</p>

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<p>I don’t understand what you are talking about? What exactly am I doing to hurt the millennials? I do happen to have a few of them myself.</p>

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<p>Yes. My mother is in her 90s and she is navigating the financial storms reasonably well. Her children are ready to support her should she need it.</p>

<p>The generation conflict thing is cyclical. But what makes you think that the average person has any control at all over this?</p>