College Graduates

Heather Prosser will have more than a college degree when she accepts her diploma from Stevenson University on Friday. By then, Prosser also will have the first week of her first job under her belt. A computer information systems major, Prosser had two job offers before she graduated — one from Lockheed Martin and another from Johns Hopkins HealthCare. She went with Lockheed Martin, where she began work on Monday as a software engineer. Landing a job in the post-recession — but still rocky — economy was a big relief.

Many of you soon-to-be college graduates are determined to make the world a better place. Some of you are choosing careers in public service or joining nonprofits or volunteering in your communities. But many of you are cynical about politics. You see the system as inherently corrupt. You doubt real progress is possible. "What chance do we have against the Koch brothers and the other billionaires?" you've asked me. "How can we fight against Monsanto, Boeing, J.P. Morgan and Bank of America?

WASHINGTON -- As college seniors leave their dorm rooms, many will be leaving something else behind as well: health insurance.Of the estimated 1 million students receiving college diplomas this spring, the American College Health Association says 20 percent will lose their health insurance when their college health plan expires or when they no longer qualify as dependents on their parents' policies.Collin Winterbottom, a researcher in the Health and Long Term Care Department of Urban Institute, a nonprofit research organization, said that although more college graduates secure long-term coverage (60 percent)

Years ago it was unthinkable that smart, ambitious and college-educated young people would have trouble finding entry level work ("Slow start," May 12). Today, this youthful demographic has been simultaneously dumped on a shrinking employment market and also burdened with horrendous student loans. To me, it's just another example of our country's war on the middle class. Considering this glut of a highly trained, highly motivated generation, why is there a need to add immigration reform to the mix as it will only increase competition?

As soon as our college graduates throw their caps in the air this month and next, they will be throwing their clothes all over the house. And leaving dishes in the sink and shoes in the hall. And borrowing the car and leaving the gas tank on empty and staying out late and scaring us half to death. And sleeping late on weekends and disappearing out the door with friends without so much as a look behind. One of the realities of this economy is that our children will have a really tough time finding a job after college and, if they do, it isn't likely to pay them enough to allow them to live the life they have been accustomed to. Taxes and health insurance payments can sure put a cramp in your going-out style.

They're facing high unemployment, depressed wages and loads of debt — and they're only in their 20s. Welcome to life after college. Though the labor market is recovering slowly, graduates this spring have only slightly better chances of landing jobs than grads did in the depths of the recession, experts say. Over the last year, unemployment has averaged 9.4 percent for college graduates under age 25. Meanwhile, researchers at the Washington-based Economic...

GRADUATING college students get their launch into the working world this month, and, if surveys by the University of Michigan and National Association of Colleges & Employers are to be believed, their prospects haven't been this strong in years. To be sure, the economy is humming along at its healthiest pace since 1987, government figures out last week show. What fields are hot and where's the money? What skills are employers looking for? Is it too late for a May or June grad to start looking?

This month, the University System of Maryland launched an information campaign to help put more students on a college-bound path at an earlier age. It's a welcome development, because the United States, accustomed to leading the world in higher education, is now facing a shortage of college graduates. (The state's independent colleges and universities, Morgan State University, St. Mary's College and Maryland's 16 community colleges have established similar initiatives.) By the end of the next president's first term, there will be 3 million more jobs requiring a bachelor's degree and not enough college graduates to fill them; 90 percent of the fastest-growing jobs, 60 percent of all new jobs and 40 percent of manufacturing jobs will require some form of postsecondary education.

The job picture for college graduates is likely to improve this year for the first time since 2001, but competition for work remains fierce because of a tight employment market. Companies said they will hire almost 13 percent more graduates in 2004, compared with last spring, according to a survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers in Bethlehem, Pa. It marks the first time in three years that employers said they would increase hiring. Companies predicted a 3.6 percent decline in hiring last year and a 20 percent decline in 2002, according to the annual survey.

BALTIMORE'S Teach for America threw a 10th anniversary bash in the rain Thursday night. Fifty-four corps members beginning their second year of teaching in Baltimore welcomed a record 108 newcomers, all fresh out of college, and Tuesday they'll fan out to 41 city schools. The Teach for America idea, proposed by Wendy Kopp in her senior thesis at Princeton University in the 1980s, is simple: Outstanding college graduates commit to teach for two years in the nation's neediest urban and rural schools, where they work for the pitiful pay of the beginning teacher.

I have to applaud Sen. Lisa Gladden for her creative assertion that if future female correctional officers are hired on the basis of having a college degree they would be immune to the sexual advances of male inmates ("Guards protected from discipline, FBI says," April 25). Apparently, Senator Gladden feels that a woman who is better educated than a male inmate who is high school drop-out would be immune to his charms. "If you had college graduates, four-year graduates, do you think they're going to be messing around with a guy who dropped out of high school?"

The current political divide in Congress offers an opportunity for Americans to have a conversation about federal spending, which should not be confused with investing federal dollars to grow the economy ("Trouble ahead," Jan. 2). Are continuing to rebuild our infrastructure and educating our children an appropriate use of federal dollars? I believe they are, and here's why: College affordability remains an issue for most students and their families, despite the 2012 Pell Grant appropriation of $30.3 billion.

Based on estimates by the Federal Reserve, for the first time in U.S. history, student-loan debt ($867 billion) has surpassed credit card debt ($704 billion). These debt levels have real implications for productivity and lifetime earnings for this current generation of graduates. Much has been written about college students dealing with rising tuition, but there's been much less examination of how substantial student-loan debt, coupled with a slumping economy, affects new graduates. According to a June report by Drexel University's Center for Labor Markets and Policy, even as the overall job market has rebounded in the last two years, employment prospects for college graduates have declined.

Providing illegal immigrants more access to higher education in Maryland could generate an extra $5 million in revenue for the state per graduating college class, according to a new cost-benefit study by University of Maryland, Baltimore County researchers. The conclusion is at odds with a nonpartisan state analysis, which found that the Dream Act would cost Maryland about $3.5 million a year when fully implemented. "The state did not consider the benefits," said Marvin Mandell, a professor of public policy at UMBC who co-authored the study.

Baltimore is brainy. And that's a good thing - nerds come out ahead. A study released recently by the Brookings Institution ranks metro areas by number of college graduates, and the Baltimore-Towson area comes in 14th, with 35 percent of adults holding college degrees. A New York Times story about the study describes a "growing divide among American cities, in which a small number of metro areas vacuum up a large number of college graduates" and notes that areas with more college graduates have longer life expectancies, higher incomes and fewer single-parent families, which result in higher regional incomes - and tax bases.

Members of the Class of 2012, As a former secretary of labor and current professor, I feel I owe it to you to tell you the truth about the pieces of parchment you're picking up today. You're screwed. Well, not exactly. But you won't have it easy. First, you're going to have a hell of a hard time finding a job. The job market you're heading into is still bad. Fewer than half of the graduates from last year's class have as yet found full-time jobs. Most are still looking. That's been the pattern over the last three graduating classes: It's been taking graduates more than a year to land the first job. And those who still haven't found a job will be competing with you, making your job search even harder.

The school was known as Western Maryland College when they enrolled. It was McDaniel College when they crossed the stage yesterday. So, what should a graduate's diploma say? The 136-year-old school, conducting its first graduation ceremony since last year's name change, gave the 489 students in its class of 2003 a choice. Almost half the students chose a diploma saying they graduated from Western Maryland College. The other half chose one with McDaniel - evidence, college officials said, that the new name, which had drawn criticism, is gaining acceptance.

They're facing high unemployment, depressed wages and loads of debt — and they're only in their 20s. Welcome to life after college. Though the labor market is recovering slowly, graduates this spring have only slightly better chances of landing jobs than grads did in the depths of the recession, experts say. Over the last year, unemployment has averaged 9.4 percent for college graduates under age 25. Meanwhile, researchers at the Washington-based Economic...

When Luke Fisher of Westminster graduated from high school five years ago, he had doubts that he could excel at a four-year school. He turned down an offer to attend Towson University and opted instead for Carroll Community College. Fisher would become editor of the campus newspaper and a peer mentor for first-year college students. He is set to graduate this spring with an associate's degree, and plans now to pursue his bachelor's degree. He's found a couple of area schools - including the University of Maryland and Hood College - that appear particularly eager to have him. "Their transfer advisers went above and beyond trying to get me to visit their campuses," said Fisher.