NY Times Op-Ed, May 26 2015 Long Odds in the Game of Life by Brittany Bronson
LAS VEGAS — THE first essay assignment I give to my freshman composition students is to answer the question, “Why are you pursuing a university education?” Many respond generally. To obtain a good job. Some refer to specific careers. A few reference learning. Mostly, my students mention money. My students are very concerned with money, for good reason. They’ve spent their adolescence watching their parents survive or crumble under the Las Vegas housing crisis and endure the nation’s highest unemployment rate. Most are from Nevada, and they attend my university for the in-state tuition. In fact, 95 percent of the students still live at home or off campus to save money. Many work part time to avoid crippling student loans, despite the scheduling conflicts it creates with their course work and additional years it often adds to obtaining their degree. When I ask my students about the doors they hope their education will open, they have rather modest answers. To help run a father’s ramen noodle factory. To take over a family business that manufactures uniforms for hotels. Many students mention entry-level positions at local companies like Wynn Resorts or Zappos. Occasionally some have more robust dreams, like becoming a chief executive. Over all, their goals are fairly reasonable for anyone investing money and time at the university level. But are they realistic? Probably not, according to Richard Vedder, the director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. “There are too many college graduates for the kinds of jobs they expect to hold,” he said. The problem is exacerbated in Nevada, which has not traditionally relied on college-educated workers. The 2015 Assets and Opportunities Scorecard ranked Nevada 47th in business and jobs and 51st — worst, behind even Washington, D.C. — in underemployment. I personally meet several definitions for being underemployed. I have an advanced degree but work part-time in a low-skill job as a waitress. Also, my high-skill job at the university pays little and can’t guarantee me full-time work. Like most Las Vegans, I’m required to work multiple jobs to patch together a comfortably middle-class income. So how do Nevada’s graduates avoid underemployment? Stephen Brown, the director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, has a simple answer: They leave. “There is a strong desire to stay where one grew up, but part of the U.S. experience is moving,” he said. “Those students who do best are those who will relocate to cities demanding educated workers.” Yet underemployment is a national phenomenon; as many as 22 million Americans fall into the category. Once considered a rite of passage, it now extends later into the average graduate’s working life, and the longer it lasts, the greater threat it poses. The more low-skill work we compile on our résumés, the less likely we are to convince employers we’re qualified for something else. Much ink has been spilled over how choosing the right major is crucial to avoiding underemployment. Talk to sociology majors graduating this month; I doubt they’re expecting to go straight into high-paying jobs. And it’s no secret that graduates of elite universities, whether they studied astrophysics or English, have better career trajectories than those from lower-tier schools. But when it comes to students like mine, pursuing a humanities degree or maxing out student loans for the best available education are not options. They don’t always have the luxury to prioritize the intellectual experiences offered on a college campus over the monetary ones that demand their attention away from it. Their choices are shaped by immediate economic concerns more than their hoped-for, dreamed-of careers. Even many career-building options are out. During a résumé-drafting project, a student approached me in tears, explaining that he could not afford to forgo his minimum-wage job to take an unpaid summer internship or semester abroad, even though it would bolster his résumé and foster professional connections. Others have worked jobs they’d rather forget. A colleague’s student worked five years at a Vegas strip club. Including the job on her résumé risked being disregarded. Not including it painted the picture of another business major with no work experience, who took six years to finish her degree. A student who was an undocumented immigrant had worked as a nanny and a landscaper, but had not done what he described to me as “legal” work. He could advertise his soft skills like multitasking and customer service, but lacked the “hard” skills that our STEM-obsessed job market favors. And yet, from what I’ve seen, many of my students would make excellent employees, wherever they worked. It might not show on their résumés, but their childhoods in a struggling yet diverse city like Vegas make them highly empathetic and capable of thinking beyond their own experiences. More than half of them can articulate complex ideas in a language that isn’t their first, an intellectual accomplishment unreached by many students at more prestigious schools. For today’s college graduates, the path to underemployment begins early, and those with certain levels of financial privilege will have an easier time avoiding it. Despite my students’ practical choices of less expensive educational paths, they are still some of the most likely to struggle. As you learn quickly here in Vegas, the game isn’t rigged, but the odds don’t work in your favor. Brittany Bronson is an English instructor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, a restaurant server and a contributing opinion writer. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
