The average student leaves college with $26,500 in debt.
The stories are familiar. The international affairs major working at Jittery Joes. The philosophy major waiting tables at Steak ‘n Shake. The chemistry major bagging groceries at Kroger. For recent graduates, the job market is bleak.
Unemployment rates are higher for recent graduates than they have been in the last 10 years and are higher than unemployment rates for any other group of adults. According to the Associated Press, more than half of recent college graduates (53.6 percent) in America are either unemployed or working in a job that doesn’t require their particular bachelor’s degree. According to the New York Times, these statistics are significantly higher for humanities majors than for math or computer science majors, with 4 percent higher unemployment and 19 percent higher employment in jobs that do not require a college degree.
There are those who are lucky enough to have found a job. But they’re rare. Only 56 percent of the class of 2010 had found a job by the spring of 2011. However, employment has not solved all of their problems. The median starting salary for recent graduates has decreased by 10 percent since 2008. Today, the average starting salary for a recent graduate is $27,000.
To finance their education – which is dropping in value – two-thirds of all college students take out student loans. At the same time, the cost of attaining a degree has risen each year. Over the past three decades, the cost of college has nearly tripled. Today, the average student leaves college with $26,500 in debt. The University of Georgia is no exception; in 2010, the average student graduated with $15,938 in debt, and tuition has continued to rise exponentially.
Between lower values of college degrees, higher cost of tuition, lower rates of unemployment, and lower starting salaries, members of Generation Y are facing tremendous hurdles in making the transition from student to adult.
Our generation was taught from a young age that a college degree was vital to success. We took that advice. Our generation worked hard in high school and was accepted into college. Now, four years later, graduates are being handed their diplomas, getting in their parents’ minivans, and moving back home.
Something went wrong.
Our generation’s inability to find a job is throwing a wrench not only into our own plans, but also our parents’. Saddled with massive amounts of debt from the rising costs of education, yet unable to find a job in the difficult job market, recent graduates are left with debt and without savings. It kills
the momentum within our lives, because until we have secure finances, we can’t grow up, get married, buy a house, or have children. Meanwhile, our parents are burdened with the unexpected costs of supporting their adult children. We’re pushing back their retirement, draining their savings, and causing them unnecessary stress and worry.
So why hasn’t more been done to address this problem?
President Obama recently announced a new program to make higher education more affordable by helping current students consolidate their loans and make lower monthly payments. While that will
help students who take out loans in the future, it leaves those who are currently stranded in the job market high and dry.
Meanwhile, universities such as The University of Georgia continued to produce over 2,000 degrees in the arts and the humanities each year while raising the price of tuition.
We current students should be worried, but all too often, we’re not – or at least, not until we’re seniors.
Be proactive. Don’t ignore these numbers. Take the time to utilize the resources provided by the university. Go to the Career Counseling Center. Take advantage of internship credit within your majors. Pursue a double major or a minor in with tangible and marketable skills. Network and take advantage of the powerful and successful alumni from this university.
Don’t become a part of these statistics.
“It kills the momentum within our lives, because until we have secure finances, we can’t grow up, get married, buy a house, or have children.”
This statement alone further perpetuates the issue. USA Today recently quoted the average price of raising a child to age 18 at $250,000. Buying a house extends the credit issue even further, and assuming marriage to be an option to consider directly after an undergrad is probably not best. These are all incredibly costly life events that we like to lump together as part of growing up, but the fact is they provide monumental increases in debt. Yeah, $15,938 is not anything to look away from. But when you consider that price to be roughly comparable to a very cheap new car, it’s a bit more respectable. At an interest rate that is surely much more manageable than said car, placing a bachelor’s degree at a value equivalent to such a purchase really isn’t the worst matter in the world by any means. The costs of school and limited access to financial awards for children that aren’t silver-spoon babies coming from Atlanta International School and receiving grants for being the product of concentrated nurtured education are an issue, but they still fail to compare to the insatiable thirst we currently have for institutional conventions that suck us dry. Walk around campus. Look at what students wear. What they eat. What they drive. Grabbing lunch at Barberitos, a quick dinner at Panera, maybe some froyo with the sisters. Eating out for lunch everyday at a modest fast food/restaurant price of $6 per meal adds up to $42 over the week, $180 over the month and $2,160 on the year. Sure, it’ll be argued, “Oh, I don’t spend that much. I only eat out on these days. I’m actually very in touch with my finances.” But watch closely. For every frugal student trying to make ends meet, there are three blowing enough money on Jeigerbombs downtown to support a family of four. Double majoring, triple majoring, quad majoring, googel majoring; none of it will save us from the sheer destruction of our own habits. It’s just another item like half of the other things done on campuses across the states to tack onto the ol’ resume. But we tell ourselves we’re doing good, we mean well. We’d never think to use something strictly to discard but retain the title. It might be time to set notions set forth in this article aside and start getting a little bit more introspective about things. It’s comforting to concede our problems on systematic occurrences, but we’ve been comforted for far too long.