Half of college graduates are working in jobs that don't require a degree or college skills, report Vanessa Fuhrmans and Lindsay Ellis in the Wall Street Journal. In the first year, they earn $40,000, on average, compared to $60,000 for those in professional jobs.
Most never catch up. The vast majority who start in non-college-level jobs "remain underemployed a decade later," according to Talent Disrupted, a study by Burning Glass Institute and the Strada Education Foundation. Five years after graduation, 88 percent of underemployed graduates are in jobs that require only a high school diploma or less, such as office support, retail sales, food service and construction.
"Getting stuck early on in such jobs can ripple across a lifetime of earnings, since the premium from a college degree multiplies over the span of a person’s career," write Fuhrmans and Ellis.
The major matters the most in determining who starts on the college-level career track and who doesn't. Graduates with degrees in quantitative reasoning fields such as computer science, engineering, math or math-intensive business fields (finance, accounting) do the best. Nursing and education graduates also do well.
However, biology majors and less math-intensive business majors (marketing, human resources) may have trouble getting a professional job. Underemployment is highest for graduates with degrees in public safety and security and recreation and wellness.
“You’re told your entire life, ‘Go to college, get a bachelor’s degree and your life is gonna be gravy after that,’” said Alexander Wolfe, 29 years old, a 2018 graduate from Northern Kentucky University. An integrative studies major (education, history and psychology), Wolfe has worked in sales, retail and food service, and now is in a security job. His degree "hasn’t really helped me that much.”
Overall, four-year college graduates earn 56 percent more than a high school-only worker, but that varies from a wage premium of 125 percent for computer science and engineering graduates to 25 percent for arts, recreation and psychology graduates.
Internships are very valuable, the study finds. "Nearly all undergrads at Northeastern University in Boston complete at least one six-month internship," write Fuhrmans and Ellis. "Six months after graduation, 91 percent of working graduates report having jobs related to their major."
Some colleges are creating paid internships for students from low-income families who can't afford to take unpaid internships.
Getting that first professional job is harder for first-generation college graduates, notes Hechinger's Jon Marcus. "Anxious to begin earning an income, first-generation students accept offers more quickly, make less money and take jobs for which they’re overqualified, various research shows." Ten years after graduation, they earn substantially less than their more-advantaged classmates.
The Burning Glass/Strada report recommends enabling every college student to access at least one paid internship, providing education-to-employment coaching and adding occupational outcomes to the College Scoreboard.
Women are earning more college degrees, but their choice of majors hasn't changed much in the last 25 years, notes Mark Perry
