does a college degree always lead to a job?

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Not always, and of course there are exceptions, but now there is a glut of educated people.

There's this story that parents tell their children:
Go to college. Get a degree. Find a good job in that field.

In 1940, only a handful of privileged people were able to get their Bachelors degree. Now a significant portion of the United States has or is soon to complete their Bachelor degree.

Now plenty of people with Bachelors degrees serve coffee at Starbucks. Because there is more competition. Now, a Masters Degree in many cases is needed to get a good entry job. In some sense, the Bachelor has become the high school, and the master has become the bachelor.

There is even a glut in PhD.'s Getting a PhD in an Ivy no longer means a tenure track position. Many PhD's from Columbia or Princeton may end up teaching in a college far lower in the ranks than the one they graduate in. Many law school graduates end up not making tons of money.

Certainly some degrees are more useful than others. A philosophy BA can lead to a good law program, but in itself it wont lead to a particular job always. Psychology for example is not a useful B.A. but can lead to a great degree in graduate school. Generally, science, math, technology, engineering, and health care is where the jobs are at, but theres no guarentee even there.

There is a social structure, and no matter what the supply is, the demand is fixed. A certain percentage of society, no matter how many college degrees there are, will have to deliver our pizzas and clean bathrooms.

There is certainly more competition than there was years ago.

Am I suggesting that people not go to college? No.

But this is something we should think about.

Ph.D. here.

College alone does not automatically lead to a job. I was very lucky in that I had scholarships and a fellowship which meant that I had no debt at the end. I also picked a timely topic for my thesis, and it led to patents which I'm now employed writing. These patents are the only thing yielded by my efforts that might be of any value, and all else, papers etc., have turned out to be an exercise in vanity at best.

I would not recommend college unless you've figured out how to minimize your costs, such as attending an in-state university. Know what your financial picture will be before signing up for anything and get financial assistance other than loans if you can. Science degrees are great for personal enrichment and what you learn can be useful in knowing how to fix things and thus save money, which is gainful even if you end up working at starbucks. However, getting to do what you trained for (research), as employment, appears to be the exception to the rule.

A M.Sc. here.

My work is outside of the field I studied for. I talked it over with some HR managers and other managers. They select people without titles, but it is a sort of guarantee that you have a certain level and way of thinking. It makes the selection easier.

But it also important to learn how to get a job, how to write a letter, give a presentation and have a conversation.

I considered my studies useful because it gave me more inquisitive skills and better analyzing skills. And it was also fun to learn these things and I have still some love left for my field of study.

I am also considering doing a Ph. D. or another field of study. Just to get broader skills. It is not a job guarantee, but it can open new doors.

MLIS here.

No job.

Just having a degree doesn't cut it.

It really depends on what you're studying. We can't generalize too much.

I'll tell you what I know (as a science student):

-Computer Science with bachelor or master = good prospect but you need good team-work and "getting things done" skills to find a good job.
-Statistics with master or Phd = incredibly good job. The more you get far in academics the better the job. (Its one of the rare domain where a Phd does not make you overqualified and brings you a much bigger salary)
-Math = hard to find a good job unless you have a Phd and it's an academic job. You'll find many jobs that are somewhat unrelated to math though but it'll be more difficult to get hired.
-Physics is very similar to Math
-Psychology = very hard to find a good job unless you have a Phd and it's an academic job.

So, it really depends.
You need to think about your jobs prospect before starting your major! That's an extremely important thing that most people don't do. Be sure that you'll like the jobs that you'll get from the highest degree you're willing to do (bachelor, master or Phd). I just don't get why do people do psychology major when they want to stop at the bachelor level. In 95% of the cases, it's completely useless.

It's all a matter of diploma inflation. The more high-tech our world gets, the more we will have to study before we are capable of handling the high-end jobs.

Master's Degree in Political Science/Government here. Only jobs I've ever had were ones I could've done right out of high school (except being a grad assistant, but that was part-time and temporary).

No it does not always lead to a job especially if you live in the U.S and are not a extremly competive minded person that is willing to step on others to get somewhere in life. Personally I like to learn psychology and sociology are very intresting and I am getting financial aid/loans which=my only income.

I have a Bachelor's in Economics, and no job to show for it.

I don't have a good overview of the job market but I'm pretty sure financial statisticians are pretty sought-after (though I think employers prefer them starting with mathematics and moving into economics rather than the other way around).

Damn the mean salary of statisticians in USA as really increased from 2009 to 2011. I've just checked on the American Statistical Association and the mean salary is now 160k$ ! !! (Based on 1615 Statisticians)

Check this out. This is the number of statisticians (out of 1615) that are in economic type of jobs (I included Marketing too even if it's unrelated).
Surveys/Marketing 80 persons (5.0%)
Banking/Finance/Business 39 persons (2.4%)
Insurance 8 persons (.5%)
Consumer Products/Goods 15 persons (.9%)
Economics 11 persons (.7%)

So I'm not completely sure that it could be easily get a good job in financial statistics unless you want to be a quantitative analyst (Quant).
Quants are the one who get the most stressful jobs but get paid crazy amount of money. Quants are mostly using Statistics and Differential Equations to solve problems. You need a Phd though.


Note that if you did 1-2 econometrics courses, you'd have a pretty good background for doing statistics even if it's not in financial. I'm just saying.

There is also the factor that we put too much emphasis on "white collar" work that is the typical result of college education and denigrate the "blue collar" work that can pay as well (or better) but comes with being dirty and sweaty at the end of the day that DOES NOT require years of training/education to get into.

Outsourcing/downsizing in the workplace is a major factor too, but so many are fixated that they NEED college (they don't) that they don't consider other options that could lead to financial independence without the amount of debt involved.