Tonight the strangest thing happened to me, I sat down and watched the news on purpose. Normally I’m not one to watch the T.V. at all, much less the news which is bland entertainment pimped up to look like the truth, so imagine my surprise when I saw a statement from the venerable Alan Greenspan saying that our nation may be headed for a recession and the wheels in my brain started spinning. Wow! And to think I thought everything was okay for the most part.
So I started to wonder, “what affect will this have on me when I finish my MBA?” Which then led to the question, “what affect will this have on college students and grads in general?” Now I have a very specific fear of working hard to earn credentials that soon become unmarketable. You see I earned a Certificate of Completion in Network Administration, became A+ and Network+ certified, then went on to Microsoft certifications and a few others. I entered the IT industry, happily chipping away at a CCNE when suddenly the “dot com” bubble burst, dropping a 10 ton anvil of reality on my head and I found out quickly that I was not only expendable, but a hiring luxury to just about every other company around. I had unmarketable credentials that took thousands of hours and thousands of dollars to earn. So as an MBA candidate I am somewhat concerned by the prospect of being superfluous in the market yet again. So what can we expect?
Well according to the Federal Reserve of San Francisco, we as students can expect less money to be available to support education. That means fewer grants, fewer scholarships, fewer incentives and possibly fewer loans. Getting an education on a budget may become a necessity, not a nicety. State schools may have to cut back on their programs, especially in the areas where money may not be generated or in areas where technological costs and upkeep are prohibitive. This means that those schools who do not have a robust distance education program will suffer and possibly discontinue their online offerings.
As if that’s not rotten enough, those of us who are newly minted grads will enter a soft labor market and be in the highest age group affect by unemployment. That’s right, that means that the next bag boy at the Sack –N-Pack may have a BS in Psychology. To quote the Fed “Not only current students have been affected, recent college graduates also have found fewer employment opportunities in the soft labor market” (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco).
So recovery from a recession means that suddenly we will be more hirable? Not so fast young grasshopper, the age group who is one of the last to recover even after the market has stabilized is, you guessed it, ages 16 to 24, or the age group of the average college student and graduate. Although the good news is that ages 20 to 24 suffer less, slightly. Granted this is only for actual gainful employment. It could be YEARS before grads are actually paid their fair market value again.
So long story short? Pray we do not hit a recession.
For more info see: http://www.frbsf.org/education/activities/drecon/2003/0302.html