"Roughly half of college graduates end up in jobs where their degrees aren't needed, and that underemployment has lasting implications for their earnings and career paths.
A new study tracking more than 10 million people who entered the job market over the past decade suggests that the portion of graduates in jobs that don't make use of their skills or credentials -- 52% -- is larger than previously thought, and underscores the lasting importance of that first job after graduation.
Most of the graduates who held non-college-level jobs a year after leaving college remained underemployed a decade later, according to researchers at labor analytics firm Burning Glass Institute and nonprofit Strada Education Foundation, which analyzed the resumes of workers who graduated between 2012 and 2021.
More than any other factor analyzed -- including race, gender and choice of university -- what a person studies determines the odds of getting on a college-level career track. Internships are also critical.
The findings add fuel to the debate over the value of a college education as its cost has soared.
"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 of Northern Kentucky University. "In reality, it hasn't really helped me that much." He currently works security at a corporate facility in the Cincinnati area. Getting stuck early on in such jobs can ripple across a lifetime of earnings.
In their 20s, bachelor's degree holders working college-level jobs earn nearly 90% more than people with just a high-school diploma, according to a Burning Glass analysis of 2022 U.S. Census Bureau data. By comparison, underemployed college graduates earn 25% more than high-school graduates.
"It's not that a degree isn't worth it," said Burning Glass President Matt Sigelman. "It's worth it to too few people."
Wolfe thought completing his degree -- in integrative studies, combining credits in education, history and psychology -- would help him dodge the kinds of career roadblocks that relatives of his who didn't finish college ran into. Instead he has held a string of jobs in sales, retail and food service, including one that ended in a layoff. Looking back, he said he wishes he'd taken time off before college to explore career options, and worries his degree doesn't stand out.
He also regrets taking an entry-level sales job in logistics after months of fruitless job hunting following graduation. He thought it was better than working reception jobs or serving food at a local country club, but now suspects settling into a specific industry made it harder for him to find work elsewhere.
"I would stress to anyone out there, hold out as long as you can" for the right first job, he said. "You don't want to pigeonhole yourself into something you don't want to do."
Once a graduate's first two or three jobs are clustered around one industry or set of tasks -- say, if an aspiring marketing strategist takes food-service-supervisor roles to pay the bills -- it is harder to hop into another career lane, said Joseph Fuller, a management professor who co-leads the Managing the Future of Work initiative at Harvard Business School.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, not all degrees in STEM disciplines -- science, technology, engineering and math -- are a sure bet to landing a job that reflects a college education, the study found. Nearly half of people who majored in biology and biomedical sciences -- 47% -- remained underemployed five years after graduating.
The Burning Glass/Strada study found that most of the graduates who don't find work reflecting their degrees are "severely underemployed," meaning in jobs that only require a high-school education or less. Five years after graduation, 88% of underemployed graduates remained in this category, working jobs such as office support, retail sales and food service.
"We all need to be thinking of that first post-college job as a high-stakes milestone, and give it the attention it deserves," said Stephen Moret, Strada's president and chief executive.
Securing even one internship during college significantly improves the odds of landing a college-level job upon graduation, according to the study. For humanities and psychology majors, the rate of underemployment five years after college dropped by a quarter with an internship. Among social-sciences majors, it fell by 40%.
Colleges are recognizing this. At Tufts University, environmental studies majors complete at least 100 hours of internship experience. Roughly 50% to 70% of its students go into environmental work after graduation.
Other institutions have set up scholarship funds to subsidize students who take unpaid internships.
Nearly all undergrads at Northeastern University in Boston complete at least one six-month internship. Six months after graduation, 91% of working graduates report having jobs related to their major, according to the school's most recent data.
Brennan Bence, 23, says he wished he'd gotten more internship experience while at Dakota Wesleyan University in South Dakota. The 2022 graduate majored in theater with a minor in business, realizing later in his studies that he wanted to go into marketing in tech or online gaming.
By then, the pandemic had winnowed his internship possibilities, and he'd devoted much of his summers to stock theater. It took months and more than 500 rejection emails to land a decent-paying job as an office administrator. He still aspires to work in tech or gaming but says he may have to pursue an M.B.A. to reset his career path.
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The Shifting White-Collar Job Market
Newer college graduates face other challenges landing a first job as the market for white-collar work cools. Artificial intelligence promises to revamp some of the entry-level work grads do, business leaders and researchers say. And many recent graduates say the pandemic wreaked lasting havoc on their transition into the workforce.
Maroua Ouadani, 24, says she struggled in her postgraduation job in sales at a travel company in 2021. Working remotely, she couldn't listen to and learn from colleagues as they closed deals, and a move to a front-desk reception role was also unfulfilling because most of her colleagues worked from home. She left to work as an executive assistant for a social-media influencer, but the job ended months later.
After that, Ouadani couldn't find work for more than a year. Eventually a staffing agency helped her land an administrative-assistant position. In her future career, she said, she expects to rely on her connections and entrepreneurship, instead of her degree in hospitality.
"This job market shows how replaceable you are," she said." [1]
1. U.S. News: Half of College Grads Are Underemployed --- Their jobs don't use their credentials or skills, study finds; lasting implications. Fuhrmans, Vanessa; Ellis, Lindsay. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 24 Feb 2024: A.2.
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