Jordan Weissman at The Atlantic Reports on a New Federal Reserve Report on Underemployment

You can read his article here  http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/the-growth-of-college-grads-in-dead-end-jobs-in-2-graphs/283137/#comments  You will find a link to the Fed’s paper.

Unfortunately, when the Fed looks at the data they leave out recent grads who are still in school, even part-time.  I posted two comments that give my view on this and other aspects of the article.  Here they are.

“From the left hand column of page two of the report discussed in this article:

“…We exclude those currently enrolled in school from our analysis, whether full-time or part-time…”

Without this data, I don’t believe we can conclude much at all about the value of a college education in today’s job market.  As a former professor, I, unfortunately, have to smile to myself knowingly, when  I hear people say “you need more than just a bachelor’s degree to get a good job.”  That is because I know that, if students really got the education that they should have gotten – to the distress of many of them at the time – they would not need another degree to get a good job.

As professors, it is our civic and ethic duty to see that students get that educaion.  But, of course, we don’t.  Many of us just morph them into “consumers” and “complainers”, and make them happy.  Then we just take the money – and the time – and march against bankers as our moral outlet.”

And,

“You don’t need to do the math to discover that the MEDIAN has been around $27,000.  That is according to The John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University.  (See their report “Worktrends” on their site www.heldrich.rutgers.edu. or go to “Median Starting Salaries for College Graduates $27,000 or $40,735?” on my site www.inside-higher-ed.com)

Of course, this is not the number that most colleges tout.  They use the $40,735 number that comes from the National Association of Colleges and Employers. (http://www.naceweb.org/home.as…  Why the difference?  The NACE uses data from employers.  Unemployed is not an employer.

To former professors like me, all of this is no surprise.  Students usually don’t know what level, or type, of education they need to get a good job.  Unfortunately, many, including me at one time, think they know what they need; and many unscrupulous institutions and faculty are more than willing to lie to them about what they need in order to keep them happy.   Eventually, the piper gets paid.  In the meantime, we have many nice new buildings on my former campus.  And, oh yeah, happy students”