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In a forthcoming book, The Overeducated American, Harvard Economist Richard B. Freeman explains that in the 1950s and 1960s, an ample demand for graduates existed in industry and Government. But then the number of graduates shot up as the post-World War II baby-boom generation began earning degrees. Even if recession had not reduced industry's demand for graduates, there would have been an oversupply. It got worse because, simultaneously, Government-sponsored research slackened, limiting demand for scientists, and the number of schoolchildren to be educated declined with the U.S. birth rate, lessening the need for teachers. As the supply of graduates outstripped demand for them, the starting salaries of humanities and social sciences B.A.s plunged in real terms (that is, discounted for inflation) below 1960 levels, and increasing
numbers of college graduates took jobs not only unconnected with their fields of study but outside the managerial and professional ranks. They became, in a word, underemployed.
By the end of this academic year, about 1.3 million people will receive bachelor's, master's and doctor's degrees, nearly double the level often years ago. During the same period, though, the number of professional, technical and managerial jobs in the U.S. has grown by barely more than a third (see chart). Freeman reckons that the mismatch will get worse until the mid-1980s. Then the college-age segment of the population will diminish somewhat, and the proportion of graduates getting good jobs will increase.
Meanwhile, graduates will have to take what they can get. By far the worst off in the class of '76 are those earning bachelor's degrees in the liberal arts.
Unemployment among new humanities B.A.s is running at about a 15% rate—higher than the 14.4% registered by laborers.
Those who do find work—most probably unrelated to their majors—will earn average starting salaries of $825 per month.
That is less than any other graduates will make (accountants, for example, can expect about $1,000 a month). Architecture is a particularly inhospitable field and about 4,000 more new lawyers will graduate this year than the 26,000 legal positions that are expected to be open.
Many education graduates are no better off than Therese Borden, 23, who, despite her accreditation to teach high school, is distributing lunch trays in a Seattle hospital. "It's very depressing," says she, "to find out that you're not qualified after five years of training." Only specialists in such fields as bilingual Spanish-English teaching or musical-instrument instruction in elementary schools have much hope for employment. With the sometime exception of biologists and economists, Ph.D.s are in dire straits. Academic hiring is nearly dormant (one California psychologist claims to have mailed off 800 resumes over five years), and the uncertain R. and D. climate discourages employment of science doctorates.