Concerns Grow Over College Graduates’ Outlook

It seems like the celebrations are tinged with concern. Recent data indicates that the advantages of earning a college degree are declining, highlighted by shrinking salary premiums and rising unemployment rates among young graduates.

According to recent figures from the Federal Reserve, American college graduates in 2025 earned about 50% more than their peers with only a high school education. While that’s still a significant amount, it marks a drop from the 69% advantage college grads had a decade earlier in 2015.

Moreover, the job market doesn’t seem to be favoring them either. The unemployment rates for graduates aged 22 to 27 have been consistently higher than the national average for the first time ever. As reported, 5.7% of these recent grads were unemployed in June 2026, compared to 4.1% of the overall workforce. This trend has been noticeable since around 2020, but it really began to escalate in 2022.

Looking back to 2010, the situation was quite different. At that time, 5.9% of recent grads were unemployed, in contrast to 9.3% of the entire workforce, indicating a more favorable job landscape for new graduates.

However, the reasons behind this unfavorable trend aren’t entirely clear. Some speculate that declining academic standards might lead employers to perceive less difference between job candidates with degrees and those without. For example, UC San Diego noted last year a dramatic increase in students unable to perform basic math.

Additionally, as technology becomes ubiquitous, it seems to have lowered the skill requirements for many entry-level positions that traditionally went to college graduates. This shift might explain why job opportunities are opening up to those without formal degrees.

Even graduates with advanced degrees aren’t escaping this trend. By 2024, only about 80% of Stanford MBA graduates found employment within three years of graduation, a drop from 91% in 2021, as noted in the report.

This phenomenon isn’t solely confined to the United States; countries like Britain, nations in the European Union, Japan, and Canada are witnessing similar patterns.

In the European Union, sectors typically employing college graduates, such as finance and insurance, saw a 16% decrease in jobs for individuals aged 15 to 24 between 2009 and 2024. Similarly, the finance and law sectors in Britain experienced a 10% decline in job availability since 2016.

Despite these declining prospects, college enrollment in the U.S. saw only a 5% decrease from 2013 to 2022, indicating that the perception of the value of higher education hasn’t shifted dramatically among the general public. In contrast, many European countries experienced double-digit increases in enrollment during the same timeframe.