Talent Disrupted: College Graduates, Underemployment, and the Way Forward — The Burning Glass Institute

Most students, families, policymakers, and educators look to higher education in large part as a bridge to economic opportunity and upward mobility. Today, however, some are calling into question whether higher education is delivering on that promise. While a college education is still worth it for the typical graduate, it is not a guarantee: college students face an increasing degree of risk. One of the biggest risks students face is that their degree will not provide access to a college-level job. Today, only about half of bachelor’s degree graduates secure employment in a college-level job within a year of graduation. Using a combination of online career histories of tens of millions of graduates, as well as census microdata for millions of graduates, we developed a comprehensive picture of how college graduates fare in the job market over their first decade of post-college employment. We measured the prevalence and severity of underemployment and the cost in lost