Over the past few weeks, 1.85 million American millennials have been donning their caps and gowns, celebrating four years of hard work, embracing the inspiration and advice delivered by prominent dignitaries, gleefully accepting their undergraduate degrees and getting ready to take on the “real world.” But what does that world look like for millennial grads in 2015? Does reality bite as much as it has for their generational predecessors, or is the future much brighter?
The answer, according to Bentley Economics Professor Aaron Jackson, is the latter, much to the delight of students, parents, employers, recruiters, and, well, just about everyone. Jackson argues in a recent article for Quartz that the class of 2015 might just be graduating into the best job climate in more than a decade. Analyzing six key factors contributed to his optimism:
Many other financial experts agree with Jackson’s observations about why the future is brighter for these younger millennial graduates.
Money magazine points out that the economy has been growing since 2009, when this class was still taking the SATs, and in their college years they’ve only known rising stock prices and an improving employment and housing market.
But a healthy dose of realism may also be a trait that marks the Class of 2015 throughout their careers — optimism that could spring from their improved career preparation, versus the idealism and ambition of their older millennial counterparts. Accenture found that 82 percent of the Class of 2015 considered the availability of jobs in their field before choosing a major, up from 75 percent in the Class of 2014. To minimize student debt, more from this class also started at a community college. And — a crucial step — some 72 percent of this year’s class had an internship or apprenticeship while in school, up from 65 percent of graduates the year before.
Older millennials themselves are also encouraging recent grads to be optimistic. In a recent piece for FastCompany, “5 Common Misconceptions About Post-Grad Life,” Notre Dame Class of 2014 grad Kelsey Manning argues that being a millennial isn’t as bad as they’ve been led to believe. Debunking myth after myth, Manning points out that even though 70 percent of her generation thinks that it will be nearly impossible to find a job, employers are actually planning to hire almost 10 percent more college grads this year than last.
Another reason to be optimistic (or at least less humbled) in 2015 about the delayed entrance to adulthood experienced by many millennials is this report from Bloomberg on parental expectations: “If Your Parents Are Still Paying the Bills, You’re Not Alone.” According to this week’s poll from Sallie Mae, heavily featured in the Bloomberg story, 36 percent of parents said that they expect to support their child for more than two years after graduation, up from 18 percent the year before, and more than 16 percent think that arrangement will last more than five years. Another report published last month by Bank of America, featured in USA Today, shows that 40 percent of millennials also regularly receive financial assistance from their parents.
If all of that has failed to cheer you up about the prospects of 2015 college graduates, there are always these nuggets of wisdom and levity shared by Stephen Colbert at this year’s Wake Forest University commencement, featured in this video on MSNBC.com.
April Lane is a freelance writer.