US college graduates face bleakest job prospects in decades

[Hannah Bell]

American college graduates find themselves in the harshest economic climate in at least a generation, according to a recently released report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). With unemployment levels for new college graduates and non-degreed youth nearly double their 2007 rates, data suggest that a college degree no longer ensures financial stability for graduates in the US...

The EPI report, entitled “The Class of 2010: Economic Prospects for Young Adults in the Recession,” reveals the startling reality of the impact the recession has had on the 16 to 24 age group. Unemployment rates for all categories of workers under the age of 25 (those with bachelor’s degrees, those with high school diplomas, and those who have dropped out or not yet completed high school) have soared from pre-recession levels.

In 2007, 5.4 percent of college graduates under the age of 25 were unemployed; the official rate is now 9.0 percent. The number of unemployed high school graduates jumped from 12 percent in 2007 to 22.5 percent. Over this three-year period, the youth labor force (workers age 16 to 24) has contracted by 1.1 million workers, the report found, and an additional 1.2 million more “have become disconnected from both formal schooling and work.”

This 5 percent drop represents the largest contraction for any age group in the population. “For the class of 2010,” the report states, “it will be one of the worst years to graduate high school or college since at least 1983 and possibly the worst since the end of World War II.”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/may2010/stud-m28.shtml

[virgogal]

1. My daughter graduated college in 1983 and it took her a while but she

found a job.

It's very discouraging,though.

[jtuck004]

2. Agreed, and rec'd, yet their possibilities are so much greater than

those of many people out there. They have so much more education and understanding of how things work. It will be interesting to see how they react vs the generation that entered the other "great depression". After all the student loans go belly up, of course.

[chill_wind]

3. .

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8439520#top

[eridani]

4. What the youth of America need most of all--

--is seniors forced off of Social Security and into competing with them on the job market. Not.

[chill_wind]

5. +1

[ProgressiveProfessor]

6. Depends heavily on the major field

See: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703625304575116170339369354.html

I fully support that students taking classes in all sorts of fields and the granting of degrees in esoteric area, but only if they sign a no whining pledge. Its their choice and choice has consequences. If you get a degree in a field with no market value, that was your choice but please do not complain about your lack of employment opportunities and the debt you took on afterward.

[girl gone mad]

7. Yes. I would discourage kids from studying computer science..

engineering, math and physics, unless they are innately gifted and prepared to compete with tens of millions of Chindian graduates who will work for scraps.

[Starry Messenger]

8. Agreed and rec.

This whole upcoming generation could be lost. It's insane.

[eppur_se_muova]

9. New College Graduates To Be Cryogenically Frozen Until Job Market Improves

WASHINGTON—In a bold new measure intended to address unemployment among young professionals, lawmakers from across the political spectrum agreed on legislation Tuesday to subsidize the cryogenic freezing of recent college graduates until the job market recovers.

The bill, expected to swiftly pass in both houses, would facilitate the subzero preservation of any graduate of a two- or four-year educational institution. Sponsors of the initiative said that with the national unemployment rate at just under 10 percent, it only made sense for young job-seekers to temporarily enter a state of supercooled stasis.

"Finding employment is extremely difficult for today's college graduate," Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) said. "Our current economy offers few options for the millions of young men and women desperate to join the workforce."

"Were we to freeze these graduates at the height of vigor and ambition, however, there's a chance we could revive them during a more prosperous time," Hutchinson continued. "When the economy finally bounces back—10, 20, even 30 years from now—we'll have an entire generation thawed out and ready to contribute."

The Frozen For Their Future Act reportedly calls for the installation of thousands of cryogenic tanks at college commencement ceremonies around the country. Upon receiving their diplomas, newly minted graduates will immediately make their way to preservation stations where their hearts will be artificially stopped using electroshock or a potassium-salt solution. Once a graduate's blood is drained and replenished with an anti-crystallizing fluid, they will be submerged in liquid nitrogen, a process that will, in effect, put them into suspended animation until key sectors of the American economy such as real estate and information technology have rebounded.



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more: http://www.theonion.com/articles/new-college-graduates-to-be-cryogenically-frozen-u,17034/