Sobering article in Bloomberg about college grads increasingly filling low-wage jobs, displacing less educated workers. More might do well to consider strategic associate degrees and skilled trades (discussed in chapter 11 of Preparing Your Teens for College). A few excerpt:
- The jobless rate of Americans ages 25 to 34 who have only completed high school grew 4.3 percentage points to 10.6 percent in 2013 from 2007, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Unemployment for those in that age group with a college degree rose 1.5 percentage points to 3.7 percent in the same period.
- The share of Americans ages 22 to 27 with at least a bachelor’s degree in jobs that don’t require that level of education was 44 percent in 2012, up from 34 percent in 2001, the study found.
- The education-wage disparity has grown since 1979, when high school graduates were paid 77 percent of what college graduates made; today they make about 62 percent, according to a study by Washington-based Pew Research Center released last month. College graduates ages 25 to 32 working full-time now earn on average $17,500 more annually, adjusted for inflation, than those with just a high-school diploma. In 1979, it was $9,690 more.
- Twenty-two (22) percent of those ages 25 to 32 with only a high school diploma live in poverty, compared with 6 percent of today’s college-educated young adults, according to the Pew study. Only 7 percent of those in that age group with just a high school diploma lived in poverty in 1979, compared with 3 percent of college graduates.
- Those in the U.S. in the top one-fourth of income distribution have an 85 percent chance of going to college, compared with 8 percent for those in the lowest quarter.
Read the whole thing.