Study Analyzes Recent Grads' Unemployment By Major

Hugh Pickens writes "A new report from the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce called 'Hard Times: College Majors, Unemployment and Earnings: Not All College Degrees Are Created Equal' analyzes unemployment by major. It shows that not enough students — and their families who are also taking on student loans — are asking what their college major is worth in the workforce. 'Too many students aren't sure what job they could get after four, five or even six years of studying a certain major and racking up education loans,' writes Singletary. 'Many aren't getting on-the-job training while they are in school or during their semester or summer breaks. As a result, questions about employment opportunities or what type of job they have the skills to attain are met with blank stares or the typical, "I don't know."' The reports found that the unemployment rate for recent graduates is highest in architecture (13.9 percent) because of the collapse of the construction and home-building industry and not surprisingly, unemployment rates are generally higher in non-technical majors (PDF), such as the arts (11.1 percent), humanities and liberal arts (9.4 percent), social science (8.9 percent) and law and public policy (8.1 percent)."

Comments

Re:Degrees are about worthless

[trout007]

Here are two true stories.

I worked as a support contractor on a NASA center. A friend of mine was a PhD Chemist on the same contract and NASA wanted to hire him. They wrote a job description for what they needed which he was qualified for. He submitted his resume through the USAJOBS.gov website but didn't get through the HR filter. They actually didn't get any qualified applicants but it took 6 months to put the ad back up and by then they lost funding.

I saw a NASA job that was right up my alley and I knew the people who would be reviewing the resumes that got through the filter. I put my resume in and under the "other information" I copied and pasted the WHOLE job listing. I got through the HR filter and got the interview. The person I knew looked at my resume which included the copied and pasted job listing under "other information". When I interviewed he asked me about it and said it was a pretty clever way of bypassing the filter. I got the job.

Re:So, when did you go to school.

[exploder]

In this day and age, if you want to get through college in 4 -5 years, you need loans or rich parents - and that going to a cheap state school.

Not necessarily. I was getting paid pretty well as a code monkey in the late 90s/early 00s, but without a degree I knew my prospects were limited (and I just didn't want to do it anymore, either). I swallowed my pride and moved back in with my (not rich) parents and spent two years at the local CC taking gen-ed classes. With Pell grants and, after the first year, a merit-based SMART grant, I was able to afford books, tuition, a modest contribution to the household, and some spending money, without borrowing a dime. (I had not saved money during my previous employment--not something to be proud of, but relevant to my anecdote.)

I did borrow some after I transferred to the flagship state university to finish my BS, but we're talking maybe $10k over two years. I had a work-study position that didn't quite make ends meet, but essentially I was paid to sit behind a counter and spent 90% of that time studying. I made the choice to take on that debt rather than find a part-time job, but if it had been important to me not to borrow anything, I know I could have made that work.

From 2005 to present, I've done a BS, MS, and am about two years from a PhD, borrowing a total of $10k (the graduate work was all funded, including a stipend). I did get (crucial!) support from my parents when I was getting started, but it was room and board, not a huge wad of cash. I had to be willing to do my first years at the CC (since my parents don't live near a university), and I had to get my BS from an in-state public university (luckily mine was pretty good). And I am fortunate to be in a STEM field, which let me get that SMART grant and good funding for my graduate work.

Having said this, I feel like I need to add that I am 100% for student loans and especially grants. I'm just pointing out that if you're willing to work and compromise a bit, it's by no means impossible to get a degree (or several) without burying yourself in debt.

No, you can't

[rsilvergun]

to get your master earning 45 to 60k/yr then your bachelor's at $13k/yr. A 60 hour work week at $7.25/hr (current federal min wage) is $20,880 GROSS. If you don't have kids you pay about 12% of that in taxes just to state & fed, to say nothing of sales tax (Phoenix AZ taxes food you know).

You also probably had a supervisor happy to be supportive because he/she is looking forward to getting someone with a Masters Degree w/o having to engage HR. Oh, and my local University's science & engineering curriculum specifically states you should not be working even part time while trying to pass them. Try taking compilers or operating systems while working 60 hours a week. Yes, people do it. Rare geniuses for whom this stuff comes naturally. A certain percentage of the population is fully energized after a 4 hour sleep. These people have a natural edge. Maybe you're one of them. But if that's the case you're where you are today because of good fortune, dumb luck and the roll of the die. The other option is you went to a diploma mill that doesn't teach anything. I've got a few of those at my job. It's weird. Ask 'em what they learned and they can't tell you...

This is something I just can't get the right wing (who are the ones that bring this argument up the most) to get: The lives of People who make minimum wage are a never ending wave of problems. Life is different when you can't just fix stuff when it breaks, buy ice cream for your kid when they get hurt. You end up trying to make up for the lack of money with time and effort. If you're one of those rare people whose genetics makes it easy for you, well then bully for you. If you went to a diploma mill then all that happened is you got fleeced (wait till you get out of school with that 'Masters' degree. You think HR departments don't know a diploma mill when they see one :) ). It's like those stories about people cutting back and paying off $200k of debt in just a few years. They always neglect to tell you that the family that did it had $70 or $80 k/year coming in. You can only cut back so much before life becomes impossible. I don't care what Will Buckley's telling you...