A Staggering Look At The Rise Of College Student Underemployment

While the White House introduces plans to reduce the cost of college, perhaps the real question we should be asking is if so many Americans need to go to college.

After all, the nearly 19 million 4-year college graduates expected over from 2010 to 2020 will be disappointed to find only 8.5 million job openings requiring a bachelors degree over the same period.

Many of those college students would have done better to go to a technical school for better job prospects at lower cost. Those who did go to college had better have put some thought into picking their major.

Below are some charts and tables on college underemployment, published with permission from the Center For College Affordability.

48% of working college graduates are underemployed. This chart will get worse over the next decade.

Millions of college graduates are stuck in jobs that don't even require high school diplomas.

Millions more are holding down jobs that don't require a college degree.

26 of the 30 fastest growing occupations don't require a bachelor's degree.

The pool of college graduates is growing more than twice as fast as the pool of jobs requiring a college degree.

There was a time when taxi drivers didn't have college degrees. What we're seeing is called degree inflation.