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.

Among the majors with the highest underemployment rates in the U.S. were public safety and security, recreation and wellness studies, and marketing and business management.

 

This is not a short-lived problem for college graduates, as the report indicated that those who start their careers underemployed are 3.5 times more likely to remain underemployed a decade later.  

 

To avoid being a part of this grim statistic, researchers recommend that college students make it a priority to engage in internships. “Those with internships before graduating had a 48.5% lower chance of being underemployed in their first year of working,” according to researchers. “Paid internships offer a proven route to college-level employment.”  

 

Researchers encouraged colleges to provide personalized career coaching to educate their students on the steps they can take to reduce the risk of underemployment. But there’s not much hope that this will occur, as the current ratio of students to career services staff at U.S. colleges is reportedly 1 to 2,263.

 

College-bound students need to do their homework in advance and choose a major in which graduates are in demand in the workplace and a school that promotes internships and connections with potential employers. 

 

Colleges with high rankings for offering internships and/or co-ops (full-time, paid work) include Georgia Tech, Rochester Institute of Technology, and Northeastern, Drexel, Purdue, Cornell, Duke, Carnegie Mellon, Clemson, and American universities.  

Susan Alaimo is the founder & director of Collegebound Review, offering PSAT/SAT^® preparation & private college advising by Ivy League educated instructors. Visit CollegeboundReview.com or call 908-369-5362