Thread: College Students This Is Your Future: High Unemployment

College Students This Is Your Future: High Unemployment And Student Loan Hell

June 7th, 2010 at 6:31 am
23 comments



Hundreds of thousands of college students all over the United States have just graduated and are getting ready for their first taste of the real world. Unfortunately for them, the real world is not always easy and it is not always fair. In fact, for large numbers of recent college graduates, the transition to a world of high unemployment, brutal student loan payments and lowered expectations can be extremely sobering. But the truth is that we have taught these young people to have a completely unrealistic view of the future. We have told them to take out gigantic student loans without worrying about how they are going to pay them back, we have told them that if they get good grades and do everything "right" that the system will reward them with secure, fulfilling careers, and we have made high school and college so "soft and cushy" that most of these young Americans find that they don't have the discipline and the work ethic to make it when they actually do get out into society.

So needless to say, the first six months after graduation can be a complete shock for many college graduates.

In a piece recently published on MSN Money, journalist Joe Queenan described the tough environment that 2010 college graduates are being thrown into as they enter the real world.... http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Co ... spx?page=1

They will enter an economy where roughly 17% of people aged 20 through 24 do not have a job, and where two million college graduates are unemployed. They will enter a world where they will compete tooth and nail for jobs as waitresses, pizza delivery men, file clerks, bouncers, trainee busboys, assistant baristas, interns at bodegas.

But waiting tables, delivering pizzas or greeting customers at the local Wal-Mart is not what most college graduates signed up for when they invested tens of thousands of dollars and four years (if not longer) of their lives in an education.

Unfortunately, that is where our economy is at today.

"Good jobs" are very few and far between and those freshly graduating from college are finding themselves suddenly thrust into an extremely competitive job market.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in March the national rate of unemployment in the U.S. was 9.7%, but for Americans younger than 25 years of age it was 18.8%. http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topi ... Statistics

In fact, according to a recent Pew Research Center study, approximately 37% of all Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 have either been unemployed or underemployed at some point during this recession. http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2 ... 3_CV_N.htm

But what makes things even worse for college graduates is that so many of them are coming out of school with absolutely crushing student debt loads.

Today, approximately two-thirds of all U.S. college students graduate with student loans. http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/12/ ... mployment/

But it isn't just that they have student loans. The loan balances that many of these students are graduating with these days are absolutely obscene.

The Project on Student Debt estimates that 206,000 U.S. college students graduated with more than $40,000 in student loan debt in 2008. Using 2008 dollars as a baseline, that represents a ninefold increase over the number of students graduating with that amount of debt in 1996. http://www.trends-collegeboard.com/stud ... nt_Aid.pdf

Most college students don't think much about all of the debt that they are accumulating while they are in school.

But once they get out, the sudden realization that they have gotten themselves into student loan payments that they cannot possibly handle can be completely demoralizing.

The New York Times recently profiled Cortney Munna - a recent college graduate who has not been able to get a "good job" and who now finds herself in student loan hell. She recently told the New York Times that she would be more than glad to give back her education if she could just get out of all this debt.... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/your- ... atrick.net

"I don’t want to spend the rest of my life slaving away to pay for an education I got for four years and would happily give back."

In recent years, millions of young college graduates have found that the "great education" that they thought they were getting actually doesn't get them very far at all in the real world.

In fact, they often find themselves taking jobs where they work right next to other people their age who never even went to college.

So a lot of young college graduates find themselves wishing that they could just "return" their education and get all that money back.

But there is no walking away from student loan debt.

The truth is that federal bankruptcy law makes it nearly impossible to discharge student loan debts. http://www.studentloanborrowerassistanc ... ankruptcy/

Basically, once you get into student loan hell there is no escape.

So now we have hundreds of thousands of college graduates that can't get good jobs and that have brutal student loan payments that they can't possibly handle.

No wonder so many of them seem so angry and depressed.

But the funny thing is that so many that are still in college are so unbelievably optimistic about the future.

Edwin Koc, director of research for the National Association of Colleges and Employers says that those approaching college graduation are an extremely confident bunch.... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/magaz ... wln-t.html

"Over 90 percent think they have a perfect résumé. The percentage who think they will have a job in hand three months after graduation is now 57 percent. They’re still supremely confident in themselves."

So have we done a good job of teaching them to have confidence in themselves or have we done them a disservice by allowing so many of them to live in complete denial?

The truth is that the U.S. economy is in the process of collapsing, http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/arch ... -countdown and we need to prepare our young people for the tough times that are ahead. Life is going to require an extreme amount of hard work and discipline in the years ahead, and unfortunately those qualities are not in great supply among young Americans right now.

Actually, the "real world" is not going to be getting easier for any of us. We are all going to require an attitude adjustment if we are going to successfully navigate the difficult times that are coming. So let's not be too hard on new college graduates and other young Americans. The truth is that the vast majority of us are "soft" at least to some degree because of the decadent society in which we live. Let's just hope that somehow we can all find enough inner strength to endure the great challenges that are going to confront us in the years ahead.

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/arch ... -loan-hell

maybe college students will get pissed when they see all of the jobs outsourced / Jobs taken by H-1 Visa's and see why ALIPAC has been fighting the good fight

then again, maybe not ~ Maybe it is too late

Dont worry Grads, you can always fall back and find jobs at wal mart and compete with the Illegal Aliens that the Democrats want to give Amnesty too... gonna take you a while to pay down those 100,000 loans though if you lucky enough to beat out a Illegal Alien that will work for far less than you

Mmmmm Mmmmmm Mmmmmm Barack Hussain Obama, Mmmmm Mmmm Mmmm

aaaaah Oh... Bush is Neck Deep in this as well

So is the Democratic Congress as well as the Republican Held Congress

why are you people not over the top PISSED OFF

maybe you are waiting for your belly button to hit your back bone from starvation

maybe you are waiting for your childrens belly button to hit their back bone from starvation

Damn America ~ You have been beaten down to the point you no longer care

The problem in this country is that the US government allows over 1 million legal immigrants enter this country each year. Not to mention illega aliens. We have over population. We cannot control our population. Therefore, the US government must reduce legal immigration and stop once and for all illegal immigration. The Democrats will not do anything. Therefore, this November we have to remove from office all Democrats and others who help illegal aliens. And in 2012 we have to elect a new president because Obama helps illegal aliens and his administration does not support SB 1070. Let's elect people who will deport all illegal aliens.

Not only do we allow 1 million legal immigrants, we give U.S. citizenship to hundreds of thousands of children born to illegals every year in this country.; these children will be legally competing for jobs with American youth as they come of age and likely be hired first as they are bilingual!