There is something very, very wrong with our country when we have more unemployed college graduates aged 25 than those who have achieved a high school diploma or less, according to an article by Jed Graham of Investors.com
Boiled down to raw numbers, 4.7 million unemployed workers aged 25 and up have graduated from college or at least taken a few units in college while 4.3 million unemployed have not even taken a single college class. These statistical results are a far cry from those taken in 1992, where there were 2.3 million jobless college-goers against 4.1 million jobless who haven’t gone to college.
But then again, demographic shifts in the American population could provide a reason for such a historical shift in unemployment rates.
More Americans had access to college than ever before, even if just for a short while and without graduating with a degree, while older Americans are exiting the workforce and adding to the growing pool of jobless graduates. In the same token, those without a high school diploma have dropped from 21% in 1992 to just 12% in 2011.
What hurts even more is that an increasing number of college attendees have dropped out of college burdened by thousands of dollars in student debt but no viable jobs to pay for those debts. Only 64% of those who have attended college or attained an associate degree have found full-time employment. The remaining 36% are unemployed or underemployed while having to pay off student loans – which are not dispensed during bankruptcy, by the way.
No surprise then that student debt and unemployment have become rallying cries for the still-significant Occupy movement.
But this does not mean that college is not worth it. A degree can open up doors to careers that would have otherwise been closed without a degree. Just make sure that you have enough money to see college through to the end without resorting to borrowing too much money in the process.
