Within a year of graduating, about 52% of people who recently earned bachelor's degrees in the US are working jobs that don't require a college education, according to a new joint report by two research firms. The vast majority of underemployed graduates -- 88% of them -- are working high school-level jobs such as office support, food service, and retail within five years of graduation, per the report by the data research firms Burning Glass Institute and the Strada Education Foundation. The report, published on Thursday, was based on a dataset of 60 million people's careers in the US, including those of 10.8 million people with a bachelor's degree. Its findings present a bleak outlook for new graduates hoping that a degree will guarantee them significantly better opportunities. About half of America's new college graduates are working in high school-level jobs like food service and retail: report , Matthew Loh, Business Insider, February 22, 2024
The Populist Right definitely prefers an under-educated population. The uneducated RW voters feel less threatened and the educated RW politicians are better able to manipulate their base.
More than half of Americans who earned college diplomas find themselves working in jobs that don't require a bachelor's (4-year) degree or utilize the skills acquired in obtaining one. What's worse, they can get stuck there for the entirety of their careers. If a graduate's first job is in a low-paying field or out-of-line with a worker's interests, it could pigeonhole them into an undesirable role or industry that's hard to escape, according to a new study from The Burning Glass Institute and the Strada Institute for the Future of Work. "What we found is that even in a red-hot economy, half of graduates are winding up in jobs they didn't need to go to college to get," Burning Glass CEO Matt Sigelman told CBS MoneyWatch. Examples of jobs that don't require college-level skills include roles in the retail, hospitality and manufacturing sectors, according to Sigelman. Another study from the HEA Group found that a decade after enrolling in college, attendees of 1 in 4 higher education programs are earning less than $32,000 -- the median annual income for high school graduates. (The HEA Group analyzed data from the Department of Education to track the earnings outcomes of about five million students. Ensuring a Living Wage Through Higher Education - The HEA Group ) A college degree, in itself, is not a ticket to a higher-paying job, the study shows. "Getting a college degree is viewed as the ticket to the American dream," said Sigelman, "and it turns out that it's a bust for half of students." Focusing on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects is not a guarantee of college-level employment and high wages, the study found. There are also other ways to boost one's shot at a fruitful career that makes a college degree a worthy investment. For example, securing an internship while pursuing one's undergraduate studies reduces the risk of underemployment by almost 50%. More than half of college grads are stuck in jobs that don't require degrees, by Megan Cerullo, CBS News - Money Watch, February 23, 2024
Of course, it's possible you're only saying that because you don't have to pay for your degree. Lots of students now are suffering under heavy student loan burdens and questioning whether their degree was really that helpful. But sure, if you want to pay $120,000 , no one is stopping you.
My degree was in Electrical Engineering, and I worked in that field for over 35 years. I never took out a student loan. You don’t want the infrastructure of America to be Engineered? You will see a Shaman instead of a Doctor? Are you using a rotary dial phone?
And do you still think it would be easy for you to get a high paying job in Electrical Engineering, today? Do you have any idea what the job market is like for engineers today? I hope you're not one of those really old people who has no clue what the world is really like today.
Absolutely, the EE market is quite good. Matter of fact I have been asked to come out of retirement on multiple occasions.
I will point out that many of those jobs posted on sites like that are not real. There are various reasons corporate employers post job openings even though they are not hiring for that position. This would require some explanation and is topic that would be best to have somewhere else. It also does not tell us how many applicants are applying for each of those job openings that actually exists. From the quick research I was able to pull up, it does seem like new grads in electrical engineering are being hired and can get a job without much difficulty now, but they may likely have to relocate to a different region of the country to be able to find work. Also the usual starting pay seems to be only around $65,000 to $70,000 per year, which is not really that great and wouldn't allow you to live in the high cost of living parts of the country. But fortunately the majority of the available engineering jobs do not seem to be in the high cost of living regions. From the quick research, it seems like a lot of these electrical engineering jobs are concentrated in Ohio (and surrounding border areas). Some in Texas as well.
Salaries offered to professionals are commiserate with the cost of living in the area. Average salary is over $124K. https://datausa.io/profile/soc/electrical-electronics-engineers
In general, that tends to be true, but that does not seem to be so much the case with electrical engineers. The salaries only seem to be about 20 to 25% higher in the high cost of living areas. This is probably due to two factors, I would guess. Higher level of skilled immigrant (mostly Chinese and Indian) competition in these areas, and the economic nature of manufacturing which cannot really have higher revenue in certain regions just because those areas have higher costs of living. (Because, for example, people in California could just buy the same products from Ohio)
