About half of college graduates will work in jobs where their degrees are not necessary and will follow a different career path than they had previously planned.
A new study that tracked the career paths of more than 10 million college graduates shows that 52 percent of them are underemployed in the first year after earning their degrees.
The study also indicates that 45 percent of college graduates will not have a job that requires the skills of a degree or a degree in general five years after graduating.
The data was released earlier this month by the Burning Glass Institute and the Strada Education Foundation.
The researchers who conducted this study analyzed the resumes of workers who graduated between 2012 and 2021.
Several factors such as race, gender, and college choice were also taken into account.
A new study shows that 52 percent of college graduates are underemployed in the first year after earning their degrees.
The study also indicates that 45 percent of college graduates will not have a job that requires the skills of a college degree or a degree in general five years after receiving their diplomas.
The researchers who conducted this study analyzed the resumes of workers who graduated between 2012 and 2021.
The study’s conclusion comes after Americans’ confidence in higher education has plummeted.
According Gallupthe percentage of Americans expressing this confidence fell from 57 percent to 36 percent over the past decade.
“Your whole life they tell you, ‘Go to college, get a bachelor’s degree, and after that your life will be gravy,'” Alexander Wolfe, a graduate of Northern Kentucky University, told Wall Street Journal.
“Actually, it hasn’t helped me much.”
According to the study, 68 percent of graduates who studied in the field of public safety in school were underemployed after five years.
Of the 20 career fields listed in the data, business students encountered an underemployment rate of 57 percent.
Engineering and health professions and related programs were the top two workforces on the list, and only 26 percent and 23 percent, respectively, felt they were not using the skills taught in their study approach.
Data from the 2022 U.S. Census Bureau’s Burning Glass analysis indicated that holders of a bachelor’s degree in college-level jobs earn nearly 90 percent more than people with only a high school diploma in their 20 years.
“It’s not that a degree isn’t worth it,” said Matt Sigelman, president of the Burning Glass Institute. “It’s worth it for very few people.”
The data was released earlier this month by the Burning Glass Institute and the Strada Education Foundation.
Of the 20 career fields listed in the data, business professionals found themselves with a 57 percent underemployment rate after five years.
Wolfe, who majored in integrative studies, helped him land jobs in sales, retail and food service.
The college graduate now wishes he had “taken some time off before college” to explore potential career options.
He also admitted that he regrets taking an initial sales job in logistics after spending months looking for work after graduating from college.
Wolfe believes that taking a job in that specific industry “made it harder” for him to find other career options.
“I would stress to anyone to wait as long as you can” to get the first right job, he said.
“You don’t want to pigeonhole yourself into something you don’t want to do.”
According to Stephen Moret, everyone should think of “that first post-college job as a high-risk milestone.”
The 2024 study found that most college graduates who do not find work where their degrees can be used are severely underemployed, meaning they are in jobs that only require a high school education or less.
A total of 88 percent of those graduates are currently severely underemployed after five years and are working in office support, retail sales and food service.
“We should all think of that first post-college job as a high-stakes milestone and give it the attention it deserves,” said Stephen Moret, president and CEO of Strada.
An internship can also make a difference in employment factors, especially because it can improve a graduate’s chances of landing a college-level job after graduation.
The study shows that the underemployment rate among graduates five years after college was reduced by 40 percent for social science students if they completed an internship.
The study by the Burning Glass Institute and the Strada Education Foundation shows that the graduate underemployment rate five years after college was reduced by 40 percent for social sciences students if they completed an internship.
Several universities, such as Tufts University, require their environmental studies students to complete at least 100 internship hours.
According to the WSJ, between 50 and 70 percent of Tufts University students who graduate with those degrees go on to pursue environmental work.
This data also includes Tufts students who decide to make environmental students a second major.
Brennan Bence, a graduate of Dakota Wesleyan University, admitted he wishes he had more internship experience before graduating.
Bence majored in theater with a minor in business, but realized he wanted to get into tech marketing or online gaming while he was still in school.
The 2022 graduate had already worked in theater and unfortunately missed out on internships in part due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“I kind of stole a lot of those experiences from myself,” he told the WSJ.
He currently works as an office administrator in Washington for the local county public defender’s office and said he “may have to get an MBA” to work in technology or gaming.
A postgraduate named Maroua Ouadani also struggled after the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Several universities such as Tufts University require their students to complete at least 100 internship hours.
Ouadani revealed to the WSJ that he had difficulties in his sales job at a travel company in 2021.
He worked remotely for the company, but then ran into problems when working in the office after most of his coworkers continued working from home.
The college graduate left that job to become an executive assistant for a social media influencer, a job he finished less than a year later.
An employment agency subsequently placed Ouadani in an administrative assistant position after more than a year of struggling to find employment.
He now plans to rely on his connections and entrepreneurial spirit rather than his hospitality degree.
“This job market shows how replaceable you are,” he said.