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For the 1st Time, # of Unemployed Who Attended College Outnumber Those Who Didn’t

I've got a bachelors degree and haven't had a full time job since 2010. If I didn't know network admin stuff and how to fix computers, I'd be living out of my car. My daughter is fixing to graduate in a couple weeks from college and only has 5 grand worth of debt. She can't find a decent paying job for $hit so I told her to just stay working at her same job driving a beer cart on a local golf course and keep enjoying herself living here at the beach. Until the economy finally takes a dump and all the bad debt and derivities are cleared...there is no way things start to improve.

"Parents may have a tougher time winning the argument with their children about the importance of attending college if their offspring hear the latest news from the U.S. Department of Labor.

As of April, the number of unemployed people (age 25 and older) who went to college was greater than the total of jobless workers with only a high school education. This is the first time in U.S. history that college-educated individuals have outnumbered those who never continued their formal education after high school.

In terms of total numbers, 4.7 million unemployed had gone to college or graduated while 4.3 million had skipped higher education altogether."


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Welcome to the "Gig Life".


From the Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/09/the-free...


In the gig life you think & act like a business owner rather than a functional employee. Get used to it. The future forecasts continual labor market instability. Adapt or die. The beauty is in the US we can adapt quickly and "failure" is not a scarlet letter.

It's hard but I encourage you to switch gears and embrace + flourish in the "Gig Life". Keep your fixed costs extremely low and enjoy the freedom. Look at the positive, it can be liberating. Good luck.

PS - the greatest barrier (fear) in the US that keeps people from starting a business is the inability to buy adequate health insurance. With a liberalized free market for health care we could have a small business explosion in the USA.


I recommend this

I've been doing this most of my life and for the most part it has been great. Everything has its ups and downs but good to know you can make it on your own. It is beginning to be the only way to get by now. I don't think we get counted in the grand scheme of the "employment" numbers though. I make a lot less in the down economy but doubt that ever gets figured in as unemployed or even underemployed.

Employment reform

We need to completely reform the way we look at the labor market. Education, training, etc... is closely related. We aren't teaching young people to be independent, we are still training them to be a cog in the wheel. Problem - the machine has broken down and the landscape has permanently changed.

Yes, even the way "unemployment" is measured is antiquated.


The really frustrating part

Is that our parent's generation is full of fervent believers in the religion of higher education. Yes, I believe it is a false religion. Its ritual sacrifice in time and treasure based on impossible promises. If your parents have an education, they believe their success is because of their education. If your parents do not have a degree, they blame any and all misfortune on their lack of it. They just don't seem to understand that inflation and the lack of job availability has destroyed our future, and a piece of paper worth 30,000 - 60,000 in debt is not always the answer.

think twice before you borrow

Always! If for some reason you want to go to College, spend the first 2 years in a Community College. That will save you a ton of money. Also, work 1/2 to full time while you are in school. You will be thankful later when you have much less debt. Definitely don't take out big debt unless you have a clear plan to pay it off. It is your life, don't be pushed into it. Figure out what you want to do. With any luck, it doesn't require a College degree. Trade schools are another option and good ole American entrepreneurship.

Nothing wrong with your views indoctrine

They seem fair to me. Do like you appear to be doing and use your own head and make up your own mind about what is best for you going forward. The opinions of people that assign blame are not worth much. Have confidence in yourself and figure out what you enjoy doing. Your going to be working for a lot of years so if you can find something you enjoy doing it won't be much like working. Good luck.

Why there is this divide is

Why there is this divide is because the companies which are hiring, happen to be hiring for blue collar work -very few white collar jobs are available while there are millions with college degrees capable of filling those jobs; and those companies(hiring for blue collar jobs) do not desire to hire someone with a college degree or even someone who has attended college for the simple reason that, these companies are fearful that if the economy turns around they think -rightfully so- that these people will quickly leave, forcing the company to look for new employees again -which costs these companies time and money. These companies prefer to hire non college educated people because they feel that these people will, more likely than not, stay with the company for many years; therefore, making their hiring and possibly training worth the investment.

Also, when the economy takes a dive the non essential aspects of the economy are hit the hardest, and that would be most areas which require a college degree; which in our current state of worshiping the Education Industrial Complex is nearly every job that isn't farming or hard manual labor.

Or because a college degree

Or because a college degree doesn't necessarily qualify you to do anything productive. It's not really about becoming educated anymore. For many its about doing as little as possible to ge a degree.

I understand that, but when

I understand that, but when DATA Entry requires a bachelors degree, we must realize that the whole Higher Education concept -which really started in the 1960's- is only about making money and creating more debt slaves; it was never about educating anybody.

However, when a company is spending money to hire somebody, they are not going to hire someone which they think will leave within the next 2 years; they want somebody who will be a, nearly, life-long employee; and these blue collar employers see college educated people -applying for blue collar jobs- as people just biding their time, until the economy turns around, and making some money while they're doing it. These are not the employees which they(the blue collar employers) are looking for.

I'm not so sure about your

I'm not so sure about your second paragraph, but maybe. I completely agree with your first.



Samuel Adams