Is This the Worst Year to Graduate College Ever?

By Zac Bissonette, The Daily Beast. Posted March 10, 2009.

As a recent graduate from a university rated "Most Selective" by US News & World Report, Tyler was understandably disappointed when he landed in a cubicle-drone job that barely pays minimum wage -- that is, until he was laid off and ended up substitute teaching for even less.

With a double-major in Spanish and psychology and a strong GPA, he thought for sure he was on the fast track to a career in event planning, a field he'd secured a summer internship in, palling around with the stars of CNBC. But with corporations scaling back their parties and conventions (lest they be associated with seamy AIG-style taxpayer-funded beach junkets), Tyler found himself working in loss-prevention for Brookstone for $10.50 an hour. Then he was laid off. Now he's substitute teaching for $10 an hour.

"I'm applying for jobs now that I wouldn't have even considered when I started this thing," he says.

Stories like this are permeating college campuses like a bad smell. Today, ulcers caused by downsizing aren't reserved for middle-aged corporate suits two decades into their careers. The sudden collapse of the financial sector has devalued MBAs that were still prized only six months ago, and Ivy League grads with heaps of student loans are fighting over jeans-folding gigs at Forever 21. On campus, my fellow students and I absorb these stories with dread. And those of us closest to graduation – the ones who would normally be enjoying the doldrums of senioritis -- are sitting on pins as graduation day approaches and the job market shrivels before our eyes.

The race for internships has grown more competitive as sophomores, and even freshmen, realize that they'll need every possible leg up in a job market that most college students don't believe will be much better by the time they graduate. For upperclassmen, the "seek out the shelter of grad school" option also seems poised to be less popular than it has been in past recessions, as soaring debt loads create a desire to get to work – any work – and start digging out of the hole as soon as possible.

Still, college students aren't hunkering down too much: As I write this on a Saturday, my dorm room is vibrating with techno music from next door, and the maintenance people will still have steady work hauling out beer cans on Monday morning. Keystone Light, of course, but college students have always opted for the most affordable path to inebriation. College is still a good time, but the job market is making life miserable for students once they face the realities of a post-graduation world.

Layoffs near the top have flooded the job market with stiff competition for recent grads: grizzled veterans with decades of experience and connections -- not to mention families to feed and mortgages to pay -- are understandably more motivated than your average 22 year old with nothing but a beer-and-Bisquick habit to support. And it's not just Wall Street swimming with the accomplished unemployed. In February, 651,000 jobs disappeared, bringing the national unemployment total to around 12.5 million. Many of these unemployed are now competing with younger people for jobs that both would have thought beneath them not so long ago.

First-time claims for unemployment benefits recently rose 5.7 percent to 667,000 -- the highest such figure since 1982. But many recent college graduates who can't find jobs don't qualify because they weren't employed to begin with. This can leave them far worse off than the laid-off, with no safety to fall into.

For their part, colleges and their career counseling offices are trying to ramp up their job placement efforts. But if people aren't hiring, it all amounts to not much more than a pep talk. New York University offered a seminar called "Recession-Proof Your Job Search” that included tips like -- not even kidding -- try to work in a recession-proof industry like alcohol. The University of Nebraska gives students information on jobs working for the federal government, which continues to grow at a torrid pace.

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