While most college students think it is hard to put themselves through college, some find out it doesn’t get any easier after college.
Jordan Weissmann of The Atlantic said that more than half of the bachelor’s degree holders are either unemployed or underemployed.
“About 1.5 million, or 53.6 percent, of bachelor’s degree-holders under the age of 25 last year were jobless or underemployed, the highest share in at least 11 years,” Weissmann said.
Weissmann notes through the Associated Press that recent grads are more likely to work in a field that doesn’t even require a college degree.
“As the AP notes, recent graduates are now more likely to work as waiters, waitresses, bartenders and food-service helpers than as engineers, physicists, chemists and mathematicians combined,” Weissmann said.
In the panhandle area it is the best of both worlds. Cherylan Graham, a recent graduate from WTAMU, found a job in the field she was looking for, but still feels like it was difficult to find a job after she graduated.
“Because of the economic recession, it is making it harder to find a job,” Graham said. “But I also feel like a lot more people are going to college. There is just not much out there.”
Zack Keenan, another graduate of WTAMU, is on the opposite end of the spectrum, as he is still looking for a job related to his field.
“As soon as I graduated I began extending my search out of state because I was unable to find paid internships or even [a job] at my local news station,” Keenan said.
Kim Muller, assistant director of Career Services, said that she thinks the students that have difficulty finding a job are the ones that don’t prepare for the job market prior to graduation.
“Our hope is to get students in our office very early in their college careers,” Muller said. “[We want] to start strategically identifying where they want to go and helping them develop a road map on how to get there.”
While Keenan said that it does devalue his degree, Graham said that college is still worth doing because of the experience that students gain from classes.
