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| Generation Screwed |
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It was certainly not my finest hour, but I stand by what I said on the phone to make my mother cry. Her generation had dropped the ball, leaving me and mine bereft of a fighting chance at even a shadow of the American dream.
I was not insinuating that my mother, as a real estate agent, had been personally responsible for the sub-prime crisis that had brought on The Great Depression part 2: The Free Market Strikes Back, the very week that I graduated college. The crisis was the only logical outcome of a society in love with manufacturing debt in order to get rich quick, and like her ilk, she had been caught up in a zeitgeist of me-me-me-ism pushed by opportunistic hucksters, without considering the consequences. The consequences, discovered by recent graduates like myself, were that no one wanted to hire us because of our lack of professional experience, while our friends who had graduated only a year earlier had already gotten their feet in the door. All of the statistics said that the longer we were out of our fields of study and the job market in general, the less likely it was we’d find our way back in. The graduates to come later, after the economy recovered, fresh from classes and internships, would be more employable than us. We had fallen through the cracks, and no one even noticed. But the real problem was that private industry had discovered in the last several decades how profitable the captive college market was, and had consistently driven up the costs of attending. Average costs of attending college have been increasing over the rate of inflation since the early seventies, and costs have nearly doubled in the last ten years. These higher costs weren’t a mystery, but neither was the fact that getting a good job without a college degree was nearly impossible. That meant that we were backed underneath an umbrella of debt that we would likely never be able to dig ourselves out of. 76% of financial aid—which more than 60% of students receive—is now loans, and the average student graduates more than twenty thousand dollars in debt. And we are stuck there because the programs conceived to get things going again simply don’t apply to us. Unemployment insurance doesn’t apply to those entering the job market, or those who worked campus jobs, like me. Welfare is only for those with children, which most college students are without. The Cash for Clunkers program was a great way to help struggling people. Unless of course you can’t afford a clunker, let alone a new car, like most students. An $8,000 tax credit for first time homebuyers is a wonderful idea. Unless of course you’re one of the 12% of the population of my home state of Oregon who can’t even find a job, let alone one that pays well enough to consider purchasing a home. Obama’s expansion of Americorps was a good move. Except that the $4,725 educational credit it offers only covers a small fraction of the average $17,336 it now costs to attend a public university for a year. And there aren’t enough available positions, even after the expansion. Conversely, the Peace Corps is even more competitive than some of the best firms in the country. And neither of them pay very well. We still have the option of joining a military embroiled in two unpopular wars, something that the Pentagon recently said is on the rise. As I near the third year of my job search, after nearly 500 applications and dozens of interviews in which I’ve been told I’m either overqualified and/or under-experienced, I’m actually considering removing the degree I spent five years and $50,000 dollars on from my resume to make myself more employable in the service or labor industry. And with it, all the pride of that accomplishment. I know from conversations with friends that this is a common position, one we find ourselves in because our parents allowed themselves to confuse the pursuit of wealth with the pursuit of prosperity. Unless something changes, and soon, it may turn out that it was hasty to label us the Nintendo Generation, and that really, we would be more accurately referred to as Generation Screwed.  |
Comments
Consider this simple rule: if technology makes your job of choice easier, you're better off studying to do something else. Right now the only way to satisfy that rule is to be a programmer, scientist, or engineer. Then again, you could just enjoy poverty. For that I recommend a liberal arts degree, then a Ph. D. in Art History.
Without knowing what degree you have and what market you're trying to get into, its hard to really side with your view of the current market. As a former IT professional, I had to tailor my resume and applications to the job. If times were tight and I had to take a job below my current skill level, I changed my resume to make myself more appealing for that position. Yes, that means you may have to suck up your pride and take your degree off your resume...that's just how it works out sometimes.
Having a degree is a nice accomplishment, but if your just searching for income from a lower skill level job...play to what they want. If I'm hiring for a retail position...I'm honestly after the people who don't have the higher education of a degree for the simple fact that if this isn't their field...I know they'll be eager to leave...whereas someone without a degree may be fine with that position for a long time.