Choices in Education Have Ramifications
The recent discussion around underemployment among college graduates is valid. Many graduates are working in roles that do not require their degree. That gap between education and employment is real, and it deserves attention.
But the conversation feels incomplete.
It tends to treat outcomes as something that happens to graduates, rather than something shaped by the choices they make along the way. That distinction matters.
When I was in college, I was not just taking classes. I was working. Internships, part time jobs, anything that connects learning to actual work. It was not optional in my household. My father was direct about it. He also had strong views about what I should study. He pushed for a degree that was usable. For me, that meant business, not English. His logic was simple. A degree should translate into the workforce.
That perspective shaped how I approached everything that followed.
When I went on to law school and later completed my MBA, I already knew I did not want to practice law. So, I made a decision. I spent my time interning in the field I actually wanted to pursue. While I was earning advanced degrees, I was also building relevant experience. Not perfectly. Not strategically in the way people might frame it today. But intentionally.
That is a piece often missing in the underemployment conversation.
We talk about alignment between degrees and jobs. That is important. But alignment also comes from behavior during those years, not just the degree itself. Internships, work experience, exposure to real environments. Those decisions compound over time.
There is another part of this discussion that rarely gets attention. Expectations. When I graduated from college, and again after law school and my MBA, I did not step into a comfortable life. I lived like a pauper. Ramen noodles were a staple. I drove an old car. There was no real social life to speak of. That was the tradeoff.
When I finished my graduate work, I was also getting married. My wife was in graduate school and worked as a resident advisor, so we lived in university housing. I was working my first real job, full-time. Our housing choice was not by choice, but because it was what we could afford. We had no money. None. That experience shaped how I viewed early career outcomes.
Today, some of the frustration around underemployment is tied to a mismatch between expectations and reality. There is an assumption that a degree, even an advanced one, should immediately translate into a well-paying, fulfilling role. That has never been guaranteed. Maybe even should be the goal.
The first job is often a bridge, not a destination.
This does not dismiss the structural issues raised in the article. There are real concerns about how higher education aligns with workforce demand. There are questions about the value proposition of certain degrees. Those are legitimate.
But focusing only on the system removes agency from the individual.
Students make choices. I made choices. What to study. How work would reduce loan dependency. Whether to work while in school. Whether to pursue internships. How to build experience alongside education. How to live after graduation. Each of those decisions influences outcomes in ways that are often underestimated---or even discussed before/during the educational experience.
There is also a discipline in starting from the bottom. Living lean. Taking roles that build skills rather than status. Delaying comfort. That phase is not always pleasant, but it can be formative.
Underemployment, as a concept, is useful for diagnosing a problem. But it can also obscure the more nuanced reality that early careers are rarely linear, and rarely ideal.
The goal is not just to get the right job. It is to build a trajectory. That starts long before graduation, and it often requires a willingness to accept that the early years may look nothing like success.
