Last Call

As we approach graduation season, a new poll in TIME Magazine finds some five out of six college graduates are heading back home to Mom and Dad's basement, with unemployment for new graduates in the US over 50% in some cases.

Surprise, surprise: Thanks to a high unemployment rate for new grads, many of those with diplomas fresh off the press are making a return to Mom and Dad's place. In fact, according to a poll conducted by consulting firm Twentysomething Inc., some 85% of graduates will soon remember what Mom's cooking tastes like.


Times are undeniably tough. Reports have placed the unemployment rate for the under-25 group as high as 54%. Many of these unemployed graduates are choosing to go into higher education in an attempt to wait out the job market, while others are going anywhere — and doing anything — for work. Meanwhile, moving back home helps with expenses and paying off student loans.

The outlook isn't sunshine and roses: Rick Raymond, of the College Parents of America, notes, "Graduates are not the first to be hired when the job markets begins to improve. We're seeing shocking numbers of people with undergraduates degrees who can't get work."

I can believe it.  At the end of last year the unemployment rate for college graduates overall was the worst in four decades.  The cost of a four year degree at even a public university is almost 80 grand these days, and $140,000 for a private school.  When you're starting out six digits in the hole and you have to take a job at the big box store, you're in real trouble.  It was bad enough in my day in the late 90's and especially after the dot-com bubble popped ten years back, that knocked a whole lot of folks in my generation back big time.

It's a lot worse for graduates now, and it's not going to get any better anytime soon.