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I agree with you, Jess, that the poor job and internship prospects for today’s college students are more about the underperforming economy than an over-supply of participation trophies,
or any other Gen-Y generalizations on which people like to pin such
trends. But I disagree that Gen-Yers’ (that is to say, “our”)
entitlement is purely economy-driven. Following your theory, that sense
of privilege should diminish with the foundering economy. That would
mean that our peers, many of whom are getting laid off or fear they
soon will be, should right about now be tossing aside dreams of jobs
that let us save the world and stay intellectually stimulated all day
every day—all while wearing jeans and working from home when we feel
like it!—and settling for whatever jobs we can get. Instead, we’re
going to grad school.
The idea that young people choose to weather tough economic times in
the safety of university libraries is nothing new. What’s different
this time around is the opportunity costs that we Gen-Yers are all but
ignoring when we choose the post-bac path. Education is expensive—much
more so that it was for our parents, having gone up at more than twice the rate of inflation over the past two decades. The federal income-based repayment plan that kicked in this month underscores how bad the student loan trap has gotten. People are rejoicing over ... (Read more at DoubleX.com.)
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