This year’s college graduates are the best off in a decade as the economy isn’t in the gutter like it was for older millennials.
For millennials in general, the better economy has put them on track to earn higher wages and have more opportunities for advancement than their generation has seen in years.
“The unemployment rate for recent graduates — those ages 21 to 24 — is down below 6 percent, close to where it was when the recession began” and “New graduates’ wages are rising faster than those of most other groups,” according to FiveThirtyEight.
Underemployment and slow wage growth haven’t disappeared from youth concerns, but fresh-faced graduates don’t need to worry as much. For these lucky ones, they can focus their anxieties on student loan debt.
Labor force participation is also higher among graduates, as more have found jobs and fewer have retreated into the academy, sheltering in a graduate program to avoid a limp job market.
Those millennials, however, are a small slice of all millennials. College graduation rates have been increasing, but only 34 percent of 25- to 29-year-olds earned a college degree. College enrollment rates for high school graduates, though, have been falling. That bolsters the idea that the economy is recovering: high school graduates, like college graduates, have found a more welcoming economy.
The higher salaries will be necessary to pay down their debt loads: the average level of student debt reached $37,172 this year. The figure is eye-popping, but spread over five or 10 years, not insurmountable in the improving economic climate.
The new statistics are good news, but graduates aren’t out of the woods yet. They’re the best off of their generation, but millennials still face an economy that’s lagging in private job growth. Graduates are best situated, but millennials as a whole still struggle to find a footing in the economy.
