Posted on 04/12/2013 12:17:44 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
It's a rough job market for anyone looking for work as we continue to just barely break stagnation levels in the Slowest Recovery Ever, but the picture is particularly bleak for the fresh-faced youths looking start careers. According to a new economic report, the situation is going to be “extremely difficult” for the crop of 2013 college graduates:
Unemployment remains high for young college grads. For those who will find jobs, many will probably have to settle for low-level positions, the Economic Policy Institute said Wednesday.
The unemployment rate for recent college grads between the ages of 21 to 24 has averaged 8.8% over the last year, according to Labor Department data.
Once you also include young grads who are working part-time for economic reasons, and those who have stopped looking for a job in the last year, the so-called “underemployment rate” is a whopping 18.3%. …
“On average, they are not going to do well,” said Heidi Shierholz, an EPI economist and co-author of the report. “They will face lower earnings, than they otherwise would have, for maybe the next couple of decades.”
The CNN article also notes that, as of 2012, about 52 percent of employed college graduates under age 25 were working in jobs that don’t even require a college degree, up from 40 percent in 2000. That means that a lot of those kids probably took on a heap of college debt — so not only are they not seeing any practical returns, but they’re short on the means to start paying back those loans… which, in turn, means that some of the burden is foisted upon their near-retirement parents, who in turn might have to delay retirement even longer… Dang. There are all kinds of vicious cycles spinning out of this mess.
We recently hit the one-trillion dollar threshold for combined private and student loan debt, and that number just keeps on climbing. Too many graduates can’t afford to pay back their loans, and many aspiring kids can’t afford to go to college without a loan — and they’re all going to be stuck with the accompanying economic consequences for some time.
“Student debt has a dramatic impact on the ability to buy a house, and to buy the dishwashers and the lawnmowers and all th eother purchases that stem form that,” said diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial. “It has a ripple effect throughout the economy.”
“Combined private and federal student debt doubled since 2007 to $1.1 trillion, according to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and New York Federal Reserve data, as parents became less able to fund educations in the years following the 2008 financial crash. Homes lost about a third of their value while prices tumbled, leaving many owners owing more on their mortgages than their properties were worth.
Just getting us sheeple ready for another fleecing is all. (Let’s at least make sure we don’t get ripped off to repay any student loans, especially for any more “community organizing” majors!!)
Well, at least when these students get their degrees, they are able to land some very impressive jobs, at places like Walmart and McDonalds. Heck, after landing 2 or 3 jobs, they start to make some serious money.
Of course they’re delinquent. Integrity, work ethic and personal responsibility just isn’t cool anymore. The next generations can pay for their needs.
The communists are out flanking us in so many ways. Look at how beautiful this is for them.
Government controls student loans. Colleges would go broke if it weren’t for student loans. Not that the communists have to force colleges to be liberal, but what if colleges started to drift to conservatism? The government would cut back student loan programs and grants so fast it would make your head spin like a coed at Daytona Beach on spring break.
Government and banks in established positions of "standing" to manipulate idiot and sycophantic legislators to enslave us all the more
and the kids that were 'educated' .. ?
angry, activist socialists with no hope for a job and actually DOing something for themselves or society.
I think every liberal arts institution should be shut down and turned into "affordable housing"
Now, if they could only get jobs to pay it all back.......
I don’t think the left intended for them to pay it back.
Just another way to crash the system and devalue the currency.
I will be criticized for being mean but....maybe the students should concentrate on piling up overwhelming debt in order to learn SOMETHING IN DEMAND, rather than earning a useless piece of paper. What program ending in “studies” has any kind of economic future? What “in demand” field in the latest glamor target, yet will be filled by the time the degree is learned.
If so many young grads are working at “non degree” employment, why were they told to beggar themselves earning a useless degree.
What happened to learning a “marketable skill”, a skill that is actually critical to keep this world actually running.
Has the “requirement” of a 4 year college degree with its resultant unbearable debt become the MADDOF scam of our day?
It looks like it.
It basically works like this: the colleges line up their own lenders who can loan their kids tuition money at rates less than what the government does because they actually teach their kids something useful and the kids pay back the loans.
Meanwhile, the government loans charge very marketable engineering or nursing students the same rates as unmarketable pity me studies majors. It is a bubble waiting to burst and when it does the conservative colleges who have gotten out from under most of this sh*t will be doing just fine.
The borrower is the slave of the lender
Another bad investment.
Nobody has to take out tens of thousands in loans. Live at home. Work part time. Go to community college, then transfer to a state school. Why does everyone think they need to go to a high cost school and party it up like they’re millionaires for 4-5 years, only to sober up to crushing debt six months after graduation.
Great cartoons, thanks!
Lets go forward to 2025. Tens of millions of Americans will owe $50k to $100k, and be in no position to buy a house until their late 30’s....and the first they go lose a job....they go into bankruptcy.
The guys who spent twelve weeks at diesel mechanics school, or a year at HVAC repair at a community college? They will owe almost nothing, and progress through to being the folks who can afford to buy homes.
There is something wrong here....it’s just that the media and the political establishment refuse to say such in public.
One of the things that’s wrong is that there is an assumption that if you have a lot of college educated people, the jobs needing a college degree will magically appear. Obama et al still yammer about everyone being able to go to college with the idea that jobs will create themselves for the graduates to fill. After all, it worked that way for him and Michelle.
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