Overeducation and Underemployment: An Agnostic Review

Abstract

This paper is a discussion of the contemporary phenomenon of overeducation and underemployment among college graduates. The long-predicted glut of college graduates without college-graduate jobs has been upon us for at least 15 years. However, this crisis appears to have had a minimal impact upon American society, and subsequent cohorts of young adults have not reacted to it in a manner consonant with predictions derived from demographic and human capital theory. I argue that our misapprehension of the consequences of the occupational mismatch of college graduates stems from an overemphasis on the traditional role of higher education in both economic production and occupational attainment.