I heard yesterday on TV some statistics pertaining to the percent of college graduates who were able to find a job immediately after they left school. In 2008, the percentage was 50% (average for all degrees, at all schools polled). This year the statistic is a dismal 20%. I did a double take when I heard the number. The report cited the best degrees to have this year, in relation to finding a job, were engineering and accounting. Graduates in the latter field must be needed to help companies sort out all the financial trouble many find themselves in. Whatever.
Apparently, many students who could graduate this year decided to defer the event until a future year, and opted to enroll in graduate school, or somehow else remain a full time student. Their thinking is to wait it out and see what happens. It's hard to argue against that strategy, so long as students are able to pay for an additional year or two. Considering that a high percentage of students use federal college loans anyway, all they are doing is adding to the total amount they will have to eventually pay back. What's a few more thousand they conclude, when I already owe a bundle. Well, six months after they finally leave school, they will find out how much the impact on them will be—paying back those loans.
Of course, they could join the military. Now there's a thought!
