What are the challenges facing students for employment after finishing University?

University has been seen as a way to get ahead in life, by improving employability and potential earns. The downturn to University is the challenges that students face once they have graduated and are seeking full-time employment. The challenges that many graduating students are being affected by are the excess supply of university graduates during a down time in the economy. Along with the highly competitive nature of seeking employment, employers are seen to have excessively high expectations of what skill graduates should have, while University courses lack the “real world experience” that employers are in search for. This is all going on while the cost of university fees are increasing, which is an enormous turn off for many students. These topics of excess supply, unreasonable expectations of employers and the increasing levels of student debt will be discussed in further detail within this report.

University has become an increasingly popular trend with high school graduates; this is because of the expected increase in pay and improved lifestyle compared to other alternatives. Data sourced in 2009 and 2010 states that people who are holding a Bachelor’s degree have 8.9 percent unemployment rate and individuals with a high school diploma have 22.9 (Arnevale, Heah, & Strohl, 2012). This has increased the supply of educated employees, which has given employers a much greater pool of talents to choose their future employees from. The supply of these highly educated employees does not meet the demand of employment “In recent years the proportion of young people graduating from higher education has increased rapidly” (Scurry & Blenkinsopp, 2011). The reasoning for the lack of demand/ increase in unemployment is the current state of the world economy, which has been severely damaged ever since the GFC in 2008. The excess supply of university graduates and the highly competitive nature of the current workforce is one of the main challenges a new graduate undertakes when attempting to enter the workforce. Along with the highly competitive environment graduates are entering they are also challenged by the expectations of employing companies.

With the increasing supply of university graduates, employers have a great selection of choice from has created an unreasonable expectation from employers of the general university graduate. The ability for university students to get employment at a top tier firm has become increasing harder over the years. The high levels of expectation with the limited time and opportunities that university students have, sets an unachievable level of skills and attributes that companies expect from potential future employees. This is created from the education graduates have not being specialized enough for what firms expect from their employees. (psacharopoulos, 2014). High expectation employer expectation are one of the main challenges graduates face.

The projected increase in wages is one of the main appealing factors of graduating university, the downturn to this is the increasingly high level of debt that students take on while they undertake their studies and the loss of any potential earnings they could have made by not attending university. Studies done by the Ohio state university show that debt has increased by 5% for all graduates from 2010 to 2011 (can & wiederspan, 2014). Students may realise after completion of the course that the industry they have the choice to study isn’t what they are interested in or expected, which potentially leaves them with massive levels of debt and no/few employment alternatives.

There are many challenges waiting for university students once they graduate. Challenges such as; increasing levels of student debt, increasing competition within the work environment and the high expectation from employers. These are only a few the challenges that graduates face there are many more difficulties that they must face once they’ve finished university.

References

Carevale, A., Cheah, B., & strohl, J. (2012). Hard times college majors, unemployment and earnings. Retrieved from https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/559308/Unemployment.Final.update1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

chen, r. & wiederspan, m. (2014). Shibboleth Authentication Request.Muse.jhu.edu.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au. Retrieved 11 October 2016, from http://muse.jhu.edu.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/article/548205

psacharopoulos, g. (2014). economics of education research study. Retrieved from https://books.google.co.nz/books?hl=en&lr=&id=yRGjBQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA172&dq=unemployment+graduate+&ots=UlArP5jA51&sig=FcH4-MdvPffrbKdwWx1TicgAG88#v=onepage&q=unemployment%20graduate&f=false

Scurry, T. & Blenkinsopp, J. (2011). Shibboleth Authentication Request.Search.proquest.com.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au. Retrieved 11 October 2016, from http://search.proquest.com.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/docview/881365757?pq-origsite=summon