College grads are having difficulty finding jobs
Melissa Lopez
Issue date: 4/17/09 Section: Opinion
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Going to college, getting a degree and a great job seems to be the dream of many high school students. In past times of economic prosperity this was a reality for many. But with so many jobs getting outsourced to other countries and businesses failing, jobs seem to be getting harder and harder to find. This can be a problem for the recent college graduate who comes fresh out of school with a bundle of college loans.
CollegeBoard.com lists teachers, nurses, lawyers and computer analysts as some of the "hottest" careers on the market from 2006-2016. I wonder if they considered our current situation when calculating these jobs. This analysis seems unlikely with the current economy.
According to the Bureau of Labor statistics, 1.9 million college grads are still looking for jobs. CNN reports that college job recruiting is taking a big hit from financial companies no longer able to hire new employees. Another story on CNN reported that the federal government is still hiring but even less than last year.
One problem we have now is that since so many people have degrees they don't pay off as much. While getting a well-rounded education is worth its weight in gold -for the mind. However, it is worth less in the job market.
In some jobs, like journalism, where associates in applied science used to sufficient, a bachelor is required. We are going to college far longer and paying far more in tuition all for jobs that aren't paying more.
For instance, as of 2006, the Occupation Outlook Handbook reports that there were only about 67,000 jobs for news analysts, reporters and correspondents (this does not cover all journalism branches). The average pay in this field is $33,470. This same handbook lists for 1996, 60,000 jobs with an average pay of $448 per week (about $23,300).
While the average went up $10,000 in ten years, so has cost of living. From interest rates to the price of gas, everything has gone up dramatically, especially in the last few years. When the price of gas rose to over $4 a gallon the price of food went up. Now we have some relief from gas, but food prices stayed the same.
The whole situation is pretty frightening, but I do believe that we will pull out of this mess. It might take a while and will be hard, especially since the people in college right now grew up in times of economic prosperity.
People that went to college made money, that's what's supposed to happen. When you graduate everything is supposed to be great. However if we can dredge through this we can and will see prosperity again. I hope.