The State of Young America: Education and Employment in the Millennial Generation

The State of Young America, a new report released by Demos and Young Invincibles, presents the results of a series of surveys and focus groups conducted with members of the Millennial generation—people between 18 and 34 years old. The report—divided into sections on jobs and employment, higher education, healthcare, cost of living, and family life—presents a bleak picture. Millenials earn lower adjusted wages than Americans the same age earned thirty years ago, even as the cost of education, health care, child care, and housing continues to rise.

Despite the rising prices, Millenials place great value on education. In fact, this generation has the highest college enrollment rates of any generation ever in America. This may be a matter of necessity, though—the report also indicates that Millenials are much more likely to be negatively impacted by a lack of college education than older Americans. Furthermore, enrollment discrepancies by race and income persist, and shrinking financial aid sources are increasingly moving from grants to loans, contributing to growing student debt loads.

Educational Attainment amongst Millenials

• Americans age 25-34 are more likely to have a college degree than older Americans—one in three of those under 35 hold bachelor’s degrees, and one in ten have associate’s degrees.
• Disaggregation by race and ethnicity shows continued disparities amongst bachelor’s degree holders. Forty percent of white Millenials hold bachelor’s degrees, compared with 21 percent of black Millenials and 14 percent of Hispanic Millenials.
• Family income is a major determinant in whether and when Millenials enroll in college: 84 percent of high-income students enroll in college the fall after graduating high school, compared with 67 percent of middle-income students and 55 percent of low-income students.

Correlations between Youth, Education, and Employment

• Americans age 25-34 with a bachelor’s degree or higher have comparable unemployment rates to older Americans with the same level of education—about 5 percent. American under 25 with a bachelor’s degree or higher have an unemployment rate of 9 percent.
• However, Millenials with only a high school diploma are more likely to be unemployed than Americans over 35 with the same level of education—14 percent of those 25 to 34, compared with 9 percent of those 35 and older.
• For Americans under 25 the disparity between employment amongst different education levels is even larger—22 percent of those with only a high school diploma are unemployed.

Financing a College Degree

• Many Millenials work part time to finance their education—more than two-thirds of community college students and almost half of four-year college students work more than 20 hours per week.
• Two-thirds of all college students graduate with student loan debt, with an average debt load of $24,000. One in ten students graduate with more than $40,000 in debt.
• Federal aid for students has been shifting from grant-based to loan-based—only 36 percent of federal aid is now grant-based. At the same time, the value of those grants have declined; the maximum Pell grant now covers about 34 percent of the cost to attend to a four-year public college.
• Read the full report here

DID YOU KNOW?

• Total student loan debt is now greater than total credit card debt in the United States.
• State-level aid for college students has been shifting from need-based to merit-based—73 percent of state aid is now merit based, down from 100 percent in 1980.
• Millenials may still be feeling the effects of the 2001 recession: while employment levels for most Americans returned to prerecession highs by 2004, the percentage of younger workers never rose again.

.