A Bachelor’s Degree: Do the Benefits Outweigh the Cost?

Before you go deep into student loan debt, make certain that your degree actually gives you a marketable skill.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics completed a study on unemployment among recent college grads. The unemployment rate of recent college graduates was 12.6 percent in October 2011; little changed from a year earlier. Despite modest improvement since a peak in October 2009, the unemployment rate of recent college graduates remains elevated above pre-recession levels.

Add to that the little known fact that: About 1.1 million, or 85.2 percent, of the 2011 cohort of recent college graduates were participating in the labor force in October 2011. (The labor force participation rate measures the proportion of the civilian noninstitutional population that is either working or looking for work.)

That means that 14.8 percent of recent college grads aren’t even included in the unemployment figures since they “are not in the labor force.”

Originally posted on PMPASpeakingofPrecision.com blog.