[ellimak]

The job market now is just terrible. For everyone. That's why grads are flocking to organizations like Teach for America or going straight to grad school, even if they aren't entirely committed to their chosen path of study. College grads are just trying to keep the real world at bay until the economy gets better. I graduated in May, and nearly every one of my friends is either working in i-banking or for TFA/Google. If you refuse to accept the crazy i-banking hours or you weren't able to make it through TFA's and Google's rigorous hiring processes, then what's left to do? Grad school. There isn't really much else. Even regular office jobs are a challenge to get.

Of course, this is speaking from a liberal arts point of view. Students in "practical" concentrations certainly fare better, but only to a point. My brother is an electrical engineer, and he is the only one among his five engineer friends to have found a steady, well-paying job in engineering in the four years since they graduated.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that perhaps the problem has more to do with the state of the economy than the state of education. That's not to say higher education doesn't need reform; it absolutely does. I suppose there are just a lot of areas to place blame. (As a sidenote, my brother has told me on numerous occasions that his engineering degree is only essential to his job insomuch as it made him attractive to his current employer. He insists that I, a student of Islam and the West, would be able to perform his job with no problem, since they provide all the necessary training when you are hired. Obviously, this isn't universal, but it is an interesting point.)