Study projects shortage of college grads

Students graduating during the current economic recession are having increasing trouble finding a job, but a new study suggests hope is on the horizon: 22 million additional jobs for college-educated workers to be created by 2018.

In fact, according to a study by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, the labor force will be facing the opposite problem: There won't be enough college graduates to take those jobs.

The study analyzed data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to project a shortfall of 3 million college-educated workers.

According to the study, titled "Help Wanted: Projections of Jobs and Education Requirements Through 2018," the shortfall "results from burgeoning demand by employers for workers with higher levels of education and training."

The study also found that middle class status is increasingly linked to college education, said Michelle Melton, one of the study's data analysts.

"It used to be that you could have a high school degree or be a high school dropout and be in the middle class. That's increasingly no longer the case," Melton said.

In 1970, only 26 percent of the middle class had graduated college, Melton said; today, the statistic is 61 percent.

And a third major finding was that occupation increasingly matters more than industry; people are more likely to change employer to continue performing the same function than spend decades moving up the ranks with the same employer.

"It means that you can't really go down to the factory and start as the mail boy and work your way up to the CEO's corner office," Melton said. "You need the education for the occupation you're going to be doing."

As blue-collar and office-support job growth stagnates, the types of jobs the study projects will become increasingly available have high levels of non-repetitive tasks, such as professional and managerial jobs, which also tend to require a college degree. The difference is computerization continually supplanting unskilled labor.

"The economy is changing. Automation has made a lot of tasks redundant. And those people that have tasks that cannot be mechanized are worth more in the economy," Melton said.

The study — funded by grants given by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Lumina Foundation and the Ford Foundation — comes on the heels of President Barack Obama's stated objective for the United States to have the world's highest proportion of college graduates by 2020.

The Georgetown study referenced analysis by the National Center on Higher Education Management Systems determining that goal would require a total of 8.2 million more graduates — a target the study claims would necessitate a projected $158 billion in state and federal aid to accomplish.

The study also caught the attention of the U.S. Student Association, a group that lobbies for expanded access to higher education, which considers those findings "a very dire warning" to higher education leaders on the local, state and federal level, USSA spokesman Jake Stillwell said.

"They're just not doing enough to invest on higher education," Stillwell said. The federal government should be applauded for the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act Obama signed into law in March, Stilwell added, but he still believes more reform is necessary.

Stillwell said states need to start investing in higher education instead of taking funding away, while the federal government, "even though it's done so much since Obama took office, also needs to do more."

But some students, such as senior economics major Josh Cortavarria, see the shortage of graduates as a positive sign.

"It's great news that more jobs would be available for college graduate students because I'm about a year away of starting my master's degree," Cortavarria said. "According to this study, I should expect to find a good job."

Mara Duvra, a senior art studio and psychology major, said perhaps the reason students aren't graduating is because they're not getting enough funding to go to college.

"I guess schools could take the initiative and make programs to help students get through the four years of college, so they can move on and get these jobs," she said.

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