College Majors That Lead to “Underemployment”

“About half of America’s new college graduates are working in high school-level jobs like food service and retail,” according to a recent report in Business Insider.  That’s certainly not what students are envisioning as they eagerly check their emails at this time of year to find out if they’ve been accepted to the college of their dreams.

The bleak report was based on data regarding the careers of 60 million people in the U.S., including close to 11 million people with a bachelor’s degree. Statistics showed that people working college-level jobs earn 88% more than those with only a high school education. However, those who are “underemployed” (engaged in a job that doesn’t fully utilize their education) earn about 25% more than those who ended their formal education with a high school diploma.    

 

The key to avoid the likelihood of being underemployed is to choose a college major wisely.  “Fields requiring quantitative reasoning, such as engineering, finance and accounting, and computer science, had the lowest five-year underemployment rates,” according to Business Insider. Health-related majors, such as nursing, also had low underemployment rates.

College Advisor’s Plan for Effective College Tours

Students thinking ahead to their college experience should start visiting prospective schools early in their high school years.  Touring colleges, in person, serves two very important purposes.  First of all, students absorb the ambiance of the college community while gaining information to determine if their academic goals would be met.  Secondly, they show “demonstrated interest” – a key quality in increasing one’s chances of gaining admission.   

Colleges know that most students apply to a multitude of schools. In deciding who to accept, admission officers gauge demonstrated interest to try to determine which students would most likely enroll, if given the opportunity. 

 

Colleges are ranked, in part, on their “yield” – the percent of accepted students who enroll. So, students who visit the campus and write personalized essays proclaiming their interest in the college, often have a distinct advantage.

Yale, Brown & Dartmouth Join Growing List of Colleges Requiring SAT

Yale University, Brown University, and Dartmouth College all recently announced that, going forward, they will require standardized test scores of all applicants. These Ivy League institutions are joining a growing number of colleges that are turning away from the “test optional” policy adopted during Covid to keep their application numbers high.

 

Other colleges and universities, popular with New Jersey students, that require test scores include Georgetown University, Purdue University, Georgia Tech, University of Georgia, University of Florida, Florida State, MIT, and the U.S. Naval, Air Force, and Military academies.

 

Colleges that are currently “test optional” are heavily utilizing submitted SAT scores in the admissions process and the allotment of scholarship funds. Students without SAT scores are required, prior to the start of freshman year, to take placement tests at the college they will be attending. If they do not score high enough on any of these tests (typically required in English and Math), they are placed in “remedial” courses which require full tuition but award no college credits.

Getting Accepted To College Amidst Dropping Acceptance Rates

“You’re not imagining it – it feels damn near impossible to get into top colleges right now.”  That’s the headline of a recent article in Business Insider, highlighting the record high number of applications being received by elite schools, and the dropping acceptance rates. 

There’s no sign of this trend easing up. In fact, there’s a “surprisingly large increase in the number of students applying to college for the upcoming 2024-25 academic year,” according to Forbes, which reported a 41% increase in applicants utilizing The Common App since the 2019-20 school year – the last one not affected by Covid. 

 

Typically, as colleges receive a rising number of applications, their acceptance rate plummets. And this is not just at the Ivy League schools which host single digit acceptance rates. Harvard’s acceptance rate, for example, was less than 4% for the past two years. 

 

Popular universities, including New York University (NYU), Northeastern, and Babson, have “skyrocketed in popularity” in recent years, according to Business Insider.  NYU announced a record low acceptance rate of 8% for the Class of 2027. By comparison, NYU’s acceptance rate was 35% in 2014.