That suggests that the 43% of new college graduates who cannot find a college graduate job are at a disadvantage when trying to find any job to start paying off their student loans, since employers for non-college-graduate jobs are less willing to hire them because they are overqualified (similar to how some colleges waitlist or reject overqualified applicants).
Since most people go to college at least in part to improve their qualifications in the job market*, the possibility that 43% will actually be worse off in the job market after college suggests the attending college is very high risk in terms of job prospects.
*Yes, some here say that “college is not job training”, but that tends to be the point of view of the high SES people for whom college is an affordable luxury good and who can support their college graduate kids through extended job searches and periods of underemployment until they find a job with a decent career track, sometimes through parental connections.
Not 1%; not even close. But I was born in the projects, so I will judge. No, not everyone can become a nurse, but there are things that students can do to increase their employability and that starts in middle school by continuing to take higher level math courses. There is just more demand for a Sociology major with a quant background – data analysis anyone – then there is for a Sociology major with a ‘Studies’ background.
Would starting at a juco and living at home reduced the need for ‘max loans’?
@ucbalumnus… To be clear, in each of their interviews they told us they were looking for full time employment in their field of study. Since we spend thousands of dollars on training in a medical office it was not worth our ROI. We have been there, done that before.
The other thing I would like to add and hopefully won’t get bashed on… We won’t hire milineals anymore if we don’t have to… Not just my office but talking to friends that have various businesses . We had some that no matter how much we bent over and tried to make the hours work for them they came in late and didn’t follow through. So our patient start time is 10:00. We want them getting ready for the day at 9:00-15 am. So they come to work and then check in and proceed to eat their breakfast for 30 minutes(on my dime) Then maybe after chatting they will get ready for the day. When I suggest they should eat prior to coming to work like I do, they look at me as the bad guy.
I had one girl for 2 "years that started to come at 10:30, even when patients start coming at 10:00. She texted me every Tuesday like clock work with another excuse. Then after like 5 weeks of this I showed her all her texts. I offered to change her hours to like start at 11:00 to help accommodate her. She said “that would cut into my hours” having no clue what she was saying. I have help now that keeps telling me they are late due to traffic. I suggest they leave earlier then. They think I am being cruel…
There is a lack of work ethic from what I can see. Been doing this for 30 years and it’s the worst I have seen it. Again, others that own companies are telling me the same thing.
Also I had two main employees for 21and 23 years. They retired with a good profit sharing that we provided. So It’s been in the last 7 years we are experiencing this. But again worse the last 2.
I have a friend who was an editor at a daily paper for 20 years. She always said that if a major story broke at noon on a weekday, she hoped it happened near the YMCA since all the reporters were there for 2 hours every day playing basketball over lunch.
That suggests that millenials, even those who do not exhibit the undesirable aspects you do not like, will be less able to find jobs (of any type) due to stereotypes which do not apply to all individuals.
My kids are Millennials and have never had trouble finding a job- whether in fast food in HS, or now as highly compensated professionals.
Their resumes speak for themselves- quick advancement because they showed up early, stayed late, worked weekends during crunch time, filled in for colleagues without complaining. Nobody gives you a trophy for showing up early for work, but it does get noticed if there’s one open slot and five potential people to promote. Plus being good at your job… but attitude counts for a whole lot.
But I was the mean mom. None of my kids went to the beach during Spring Break in college- they either stayed on campus to work or came home to log extra hours at their old jobs from HS. Christmas vacation was for seeing family and job-hunting. They observed the laws of capitalism growing up- you want to get paid, you need to find a job.
It’s not true that Millenials don’t have a work ethic. SOME Millennials have no work ethic. But then again- some Baby Boomers have no work ethic (how many of my friends left the workforce to raise their kids and are now aggravated and incensed that they can’t find a job which pays $150K and allows them to leave at 4 pm to drive their HS kids to their activities, or they CAN find that job but their employer expects them to travel to Dayton Ohio or Boston once a quarter.) And lots of Gen X’s have their own particular quirks.
Yes, I am stereotyping.(unfairly) … And yes I do not like to either. (blowing off steam here). We just put in another ad and will see what shows up. But after interviewing like 25 people it all seems the same. They want the hours to fit their schedules with no variance . Maybe it’s our local… Don’t know… My own kids are hard workers and don’t know what they are called… Lol… 19 and 21 years old… But neither ever had a hard time finding jobs at all.
Knowsstuff- is their an organization in your community which trains displaced workers or people going back into the labor force? I have found them to be an excellent source of talent. A major corporation left town and there were a lot of hard-working people who were unemployed. Some of them had been with the same company for two decades. Hard-working, loyal, need a paycheck but expect to work hard for it.
At the other end of the age spectrum- have you posted with your local Boys Club/Girls Club? There are kids who went through the program and have aged out (22 or 23 years old) but who go back to volunteer as leaders and coaches. These kids often did not grow up with much- they make exceptional employees and their references are easy to check since LOTS of grownups in your community have worked with them over the years.
@bloosom both great ideas. Thx. We have hired people that need jobs like on public aid but do to divorce etc. They are extremely hard workers. Yes, guess I am stereotyping again. But we also need the intellectual curiosity and intelligence. No I am not saying that people that are on public aid are not intelligent so please don’t go there as I dig a deeper hole here… But my best worker is a premed student. Tell her how to do something once and your done. She’s great with people and highly intelligent. Those are rare qualities and we know we have leased per se till the summer once she gets accepted to med school. So yes, I guess she is over qualified but awesome.
Of course it would have been cheaper @bluebayou , but we live within a system that requires loans to afford in-state tuition for probably 80% of families, including ours. My kids will pay their loans because they grew up with a solid foundation and marinated in privilege. $30k is not a lot of money for us. Every single family member over 30 has the type of cash lying to pay off their loans lump sum. We could afford to give them a choice of in-state with loans, OOS or private with loans and scholarships, Alabama without loans, or juco.
Nothing will stop kids like the ones in the story from seeking aspirational education with the idea they will be among the lucky upper % of graduates with white-collar level incomes. The odds are in their favor that it works. They did not plan to be among the lower %. This hits even the engineering majors. The next recession will create its own stories similar to these.
My smart, hard-working and smart D applied to 300 jobs, about half of them outside her field including things like barista, got 2 phone interviews and no offers. I see lots of “just go get another job” advice. She tutored math for a while then joined the Peace Corps, something she could afford to do because she saved her money living and home rent free.
My kids are good workers. They don’t skip work because they didn’t skip school, even if something really fun like a day at the beach comes up. My daughter didn’t even realize that she could take a 1/2 day off work for her grandfather’s funeral. She was always the last kid in the car after practice because she was putting away equipment and picking up trash (and yes, a lot of PARENTS are litterbugs and think the magic clean up fairies will arrive to throw out their water bottles and wrappers they leave behind - no fairies, just my daughter).
My nephews were 12 and earned $15 per game umpiring for baseball this summer. Now 13 and are reffing soccer and hockey and making more. Some kids work.
@Knowsstuff don’t offer a flexible schedule. Work is from 9 to 5, 30 minutes for lunch. Don’t allow eating at the desks.
@magnetron I can’t speak for the other posters, but we are far from the top1%. We have had kids go the 2 yr CC route (and end with a 2 yr Allied Health degree that earns her far more than the avg US American household, and no, she is not a nurse), the live at home and commute route, and attend on scholarship route. Those are their only options, bc for our kids budget controls the decision more than fit or any other factor.
We also take personal responsibility seriously and have raised our kids that way… Our kids know that they have to live off a budget and spending $$ doesn’t exist until every single bill is paid. The idea of running away to a different country to avoid debt would never cross their mind. Working 2 jobs? Yes.
@twoinanddone… We do that but it gets morphed as time goes on that we learn they they have to care for their young daughters kid or whatever. Not all people are upfront on their resumes. It’s amazing what you find out after the fact, like medical issues etc that could hinder their employment. . They eat in our kitchen and of course doesn’t start out this way. Some take pride in their jobs and some don’t. To many its just that, a job, a paycheck. No integerty, no pride in their work. When we had our employees for 21/23 years they had a great work ethic and took pride in what they did. Both no experience after high school and we gave both of them careers and not just jobs.
Going on trips over spring break and taking days off from school for special times aren’t the common denominator for the lack of a good work ethic. We did that often (we live life when it comes) and my lads are now and always have been in demand in the workforce and volunteering. There’s a reason they’ve had job offers from folks who know them years before they graduated. Every job they’ve had they’ve done well with.
Due to our living on a farm, my lads have also worked - truly worked - to help them family out with “life” things since their preschool days via gardening, help with chickens, ponies, fences, repairs, or whatever needed doing. It’s a way of life they were brought up with. I think a huge problem with many of today’s young adults is they really haven’t worked aside from maybe having to do dishes or clean their rooms so it’s foreign to them. We don’t need to bring back the sweatshops, but allowing kids to work at a younger age sure seems to help train them up in the way we want them as adults.
Stop with all the stereotyping. If employers are just upfront with expectations then you will figure out if someone will work within the first week. Many employers are wimps and let employees walk all over them. People don’t like confrontation naturally.
My D19 was 16 and worked 18 straight days before a vacation and 21 straight days after vacation in the Summer. Many days were 12-13 hours because she was working 2 jobs at a time. The work ethic is there for many and it doesn’t take long to figure out who has it.
Some traditional kid jobs like newspaper delivery faded away as kid jobs. Perhaps helicopter parenting had some effect – what parent these days will allow their kids to ride their bicycles on their own at 5am every morning? Of course, newspaper delivery jobs won’t come back in kid-accessible form as print newspaper subscriptions have fallen, so that a newspaper route is now much sparser and is more likely to require a car.
I once worked for a newspaper. It’s not the helicopter parents that stopped kids having routes, it’s the uptick in crime and the legal liability. In the short time I was there, we went entirely from kids throwing to adult MEN throwing.
