Is Your Degree Worth It? New Grads Face a Harsh Job Market Reality

Ever since she graduated a year ago with a degree in computer science, Maggie Chen, 23, has been searching for her first real job. The process has been grueling and impersonal, she said, involving a lot of ghosting and rejection, which at times has made her “a bit depressed and demotivated.”

Mostly, “looking on LinkedIn just makes me feel sad,” said Chen, who switched to computer science from biochemistry halfway through her undergraduate studies at the University of California at Davis after she got into computers early in the pandemic. Tech appealed to her because it seemed stable and full of opportunity - and because she wanted to be done with school after completing her bachelor’s degree.

For Chen, a first-generation college student, the “guilt of being dependent” on her parents after graduation has been “very awful,” despite how supportive they are. They encouraged her to follow in the footsteps of friends who are pursuing more advanced degrees to better their chances on the job market, but she is wary about spending more time and money on school.

“Everybody tells you, ‘Just get a college degree and you’ll get a job’ and it’ll make things easier,” Chen said. Now, “a master’s is the new bachelor’s, I guess.”

Chen is among the growing numbers of graduates facing a bumpy transition to professional life as they contend with one of the toughest job markets in years for people in their 20s. The unemployment rate for college graduates ages 22 to 27 jumped to 5.3 percent in the past six months ending in May, up from 4.4 percent for the same period a year earlier, according to a Washington Post analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data. College graduates in that age group usually have a lower unemployment rate than workers without degrees, but their advantage now is as small as it has been at any point since at least 1994.

As summer heats up, grads are peppering social media with frustrated posts about the job search. In interviews, young workers said they are disillusioned with unresponsive recruiters and employers, ghost postings and AI slop on jobsites. Rejection after rejection has left many grads still struggling to find their feet more than a year after graduation, forcing some to question the value of their degrees and pivot, while others take gambles in hopes of working in their chosen fields.

For now, Chen has an internship with a start-up in New York that she hopes will lead somewhere. But she knows she’s at a disadvantage vying for full-time roles in the current market.

“Everybody being laid off is applying to the same positions as me,” Chen said. “They obviously have more experience, so I’m at a loss, I guess.”

Shrinking opportunities

Growth among entry-level jobs across tech, finance and consulting - the top industries attracting graduates - has slowed significantly in the past few years, according to data from Revelio Labs, a workforce analytics company: Since the early days of the pandemic, employers have been adding fewer entry-level positions compared with more-experienced roles. Entry-level openings in these fields are down 33 percent compared with 2015, Revelio’s data shows. In contrast, non-entry-level openings rose 67 percent in the same period.

Lisa Simon, chief economist at Revelio Labs, said that “classic graduate programs in big companies just seem to be recruiting less” as higher interest rates and inflationary pressures weigh on budgets. In this market, “we are seeing an increasing value put on experience and expertise in a lot of areas,” she added.

Fluctuating trade policies and political uncertainty also are contributing to a “really, really cautious hiring environment” for employers, Simon said. Meanwhile, early-career roles are “seeing the biggest declines from AI exposure,” in part because they often involve the kinds of “executable tasks that AI tends to be fairly good at.”

“There’s a lot going on, and, unfortunately, it impacts entry-level jobs the most,” Simon said.

Manav Raj, an assistant professor of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, said he has noticed “a little more consternation about the job search” from his students. Among those working on their MBAs, there’s a sense of diminished job opportunities, Raj said.

Compared with what he encountered after graduating in 2015, the entry-level market today is “very, very different,” he added.

The reasons are myriad, Raj continued, pointing to hiring pullbacks in tech and other industries, as well as inflation and tariff uncertainty weighing on corporate budgets. And the embrace of AI is “changing the way companies are making these investments” in their workforces, he said.

“Things have changed really quickly,” Raj said. “They may have entered these programs or career paths in an environment where things looked more vibrant. Now there’s this sense of uncertainty.”