- A 43-year-old man has been unemployed for years despite having two degrees
- Dan Colflesh Quit His Job at 34 to Get a College Degree
- The graduate said the experience left him feeling ‘defeated’
A university-educated millennial has complained that his degree is “worthless” after failing to find a job for three years.
Dan Colflesh quit his job in the customer service industry at age 34 to pursue a degree in hopes of improving his job prospects.
“I worked my way into a few companies, but always found a hurdle in promotions because I didn’t have a college education,” Colflesh he told Business Insider.
However, the now 43-year-old has declared his degree “useless” after spending years after graduating struggling to get a job and saddled with student debt.
In 2021, Colflesh graduated with an associate degree in physics from a community college and a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
His story comes amid speculation that the college degree is losing its value as Walmart, Accenture and IBM eliminated degree requirements from their corporate job descriptions.
Dan Colflesh quit his job in the customer service industry at age 34 to pursue a college degree.
The graduate said his experience with the job market has left him feeling ‘defeated’
‘No one will hire me. My bachelor’s degree is worthless,’ he lamented in the publication.
Colflesh explained that he has been looking for work for the three years since graduating with no luck. She has unsuccessfully applied for more than 100 jobs.
The graduate told Insider that he’s still looking for work and that the process has left him feeling “defeated” at times.
“It used to be that you could get a bachelor’s degree in almost any subject and get some kind of well-paying job,” he said.
“Now you have to have a tremendous amount of experience.”
“I keep hearing employers say that no one wants to work, and I desperately want to work, and I can never get anyone to sit down and talk to me,” she added.
The unemployment rate for American men is low compared to previous decades
Colflesh said he feels he faces additional challenges because he is autistic.
“I’m always going to seem weird to most people who aren’t autistic,” he explained.
“The general lack of acceptance of autistic people makes social media challenging and that affects job opportunities.”
However, he remains determined to find work.
“I’ll keep looking no matter how bleak it is, because I have to,” he said.
The unemployment rate for American men is low compared to previous decades.
However, it has declined sharply since 1950, when about 97 percent of men ages 25 to 54 were in the labor force compared to just 89 percent employed now.