<p>Economic Policy Institute report finds that since 2001, wage levels have decreased and employment levels have plummeted for college graduates.</p>
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...for most graduates, the wages and growth of employment for young college graduates have not fully recovered from the 2001 recession, and until that happens, future degree holders must rely on more than their four years to land a well-paying job.
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<p>Not for business and engineering grads from decent schools.</p>
<p>I think this has always been true. That piece of paper is not a magic wand. And with the baby boomers, there are more and more...and more young people graduating with the piece of paper - flooding the job market. </p>
<p>The solution? Encourage our youth to actually get training in something where there is a demand for talent. Currently, that seems to be technology and medical fields.</p>
<p>I'm big in favor of internships. I think kids who do them are FAR better prepared for the job market.</p>
<p>Actually, I think it is most important to make sure that students have both job and job-hunting skills early on --as the parent of two employed college kids, one of whom supported himself for 3 years while out of school -- I have to say that it really comes down largely to the degree of effort the students puts into finding work, as well as their sophistication in approaching the process. A resume with demonstrated work experience is invaluable -- most employers are going to look for a demonstrated track record. </p>
<p>The kid with the strong work ethic and plenty of on-the-job experience may not always get their first choice job, but they won't be unemployed, either.</p>
<p>I think too many kids think their college degree is a job ticket when it is nothing more than a qualifier -- they may have the degree but lose out to others who have similar degrees but greater work experience.</p>
<p>Have to admit I dropped out of undergrad and finished up in nursing school. Never had trouble getting a job after that!</p>
<p>Well, given the boomlet of kids in college and graduating coupled wtih the tight economy...sounds like competition for entry level jobs. And, I disagree with the comment about engineering. It depends on what kind of engineering. I do not think this statement would be true for basic mechanical engineers with no experience. Our company has outsourced hundreds of the North America engineering jobs overseas and our entry level engineering compensation packages with the exception of software engineers are not as plump as they once were.</p>
<p>Tight economy?? The unemployment rate is below 5%... there has not been a better time to look for a job in quite a while.</p>
<p>My school had a GREAT year for engineers including MEs</p>
<p>quote: "Tight economy?? The unemployment rate is below 5%... there has not been a better time to look for a job in quite a while."</p>
<p>I believe that in the past 5 years or so they have begun recalculating the unemployment rate so that those who have been unemployed for longer than a certain amount of time are no longer counted in the statistics. I'll have to do some research to find a link on this, but you can thank the Bush Administration for monkeying with the numbers.</p>
<p>Pearl I believe you are correct, those people are "not counted". There will always be the eternal optimist and I am by no means a pessimist. Perhaps the optimist lives in an area of the country that is seeing growth....there are a few of those in areas. Coming from a family of engineers (I'm not one BTW), I'm glad the MEs are finding jobs. It would be, however, interesting to see if their compensation packages right out of college are comparable (adjusted to today's $) to those of a few years ago.</p>
<p>My son (MIT EE bachelors) took the lowest of his job offers (it includes some unpaid benefits, like the opportunity to spend about half his time SCUBA diving in exotic places). Even so, his salary will be higher than the top teacher salary (those with 25 years and a PhD) in the state of Washington. I'm not too worried about graduating engineers; all his friends had multiple offers, some of them with 6 figures.</p>
<p>Bethie, I agree about internships. Not only do they have intrinsic value, but they prep the student for "real world" job hunting. My D made a couple of errors in judgment & assumptions, none fatal to her prospects, fortunately, for this summer's internship search/application and what she learned from that will be invaluable in the future.</p>
<p>dmd77, very happy for your son. I don't believe EEs have too much trouble. Also the very well known, very good engineering school graduates fare much better than the lesser known schools. My Fortune 50 company is recruiting this year after several years of very, very limited college recruiting. I do believe the economy is picking up steam although the housing markets and industry are still hitching up their bootstraps. Personally, I'm all for the economy picking up...I'd like to slide gracefully into retirement in the next 8 years.</p>
<p>Base on my company's experience, the job market for college graduates are very good this year. We have to make more offers than past years to fill our hiring needs and the salary for new graduates are higher as well.</p>
<p>My son, an engineering graduate, had about a dozen job interviews and chose from a wide range of opportunities. Almost every company came through with an offer and they were all quite generous. He's not complaining. Most of his classmates report the same.</p>
<p>If you rely on the college career office, if you procrastinate, if you send out only a few resumes and only look for jobs where they aren't, then you'll be disappointed. But, to describe this as a 'bad economy' is just absurd.</p>
<p>While jobs may be available for most college graduates, college graduates with disabilities have an uphill struggle. I have cerebral palsy (which includes a significant learning disability) and graduated from Wellesley in 2007 by the skin of my teeth. I still don’t have a job because all the administrative jobs that I apply to are above my head which shows on interviews and I don’t get hired. I believe that I would have been in the same situation regardless of the brand name of my college or even whether or not I went to college at all. It will always be extremely difficult for me to find my niche and have gainful employment. I am helped by my state’s Voc. Rehab. agency, but so far to no avail, since a great majority of jobs are not right for me.</p>
<p>Just to give you a sense of my cognitive ability, I have a Full Scale IQ of around 105 with Verbal IQ of 135 and Performance IQ of 73. And on my SAT in high school, I scored a 1350 (680V 670M).</p>
<p>I am really at a loss and don’t have any idea of how to establish myself in life.</p>
<p>Please note that the original posts were from two years ago. The economy has changed since then.</p>
<p>^Oh! Cuz I was thinking “wth”!!</p>
<p>Good catch Erin’s Dad.</p>
<p>The economy is MUCH different than it was 2 years ago. Unemployment is at least double what it was in 2007 in most locations.</p>