Why Graduates Are Too Broke To Launch Their Lives

Many young adults, facing a difficult job market, suffer from a failure to launch their lives and leave the safety of the family home. Many must continue to rely in some part on parents for financial support, according to the findings of a new survey.


“The majority of young adults are struggling to achieve financial security in their transition from college to adulthood,” according to the Arizona Pathways to Life Success for University Students (APLUS). It is an annual study that polls some 1,000 young people who are making the transition from college to post-graduate life.

The reason seems to be directly related to their financial well-being.

“Keep in mind that the Great Recession triggered by the global meltdown in 2008 continues to cast a long shadow on economic opportunity for young adults,” said Michael Staten, a professor with the Take Charge America Institute for Consumer Financial Education and Research. He added it is not clear if this will be a long-term trend. But today’s results, poll officials said, have implications beyond the numbers.

Indeed, financial problems are also changing how some young adults are running their lives in their 20s, the survey said.
“Many participants reported that marriage (28 percent) and having children were not important life goals; 19 percent felt home ownership unimportant, and 16 percent rated living on their own as unimportant,” the survey said.

The survey also showed that about half of respondents continue to need financial support. And it isn’t just a problem of unemployment. The survey found as well that half of those still getting help from their parents have full-time jobs.

“I think the economy has been a factor and also the fact that high student debt is very well documented and is causing concern,” according to Ted Beck, president and chief executive officer of the National Endowment for Financial Education, which worked on the poll.

And some poll participants now living in New York were beating the odds of the stay-at-home college graduates.

For example, Blaire Baker, a 2010 graduate, is an actress who just recently completed a nine-month national tour of “Beauty and the Beast.” She lives on her own in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood of Manhattan.
“It’s definitely a challenge because no job in my business is permanent, so you are constantly trying to find a new job,” she says.

To get by, Baker has worked a number of part-time jobs. These include waitress and desk assistant. She has the mathematical skills to work with spreadsheets. Her advice: Have survival skills if you can’t immediately find work in your chosen field.

Colin T. Landon, a 2011 graduate who lives in Park Slope, has his own apartment and is making a living in media, something he studied in college. He is a project manager with PostWorks New York in Soho.
Landon credits a college internship with a small media company for helping him get a foothold in his chosen industry. His advice: “You have to be serious and diligent about getting a job. If you’re serious, then things will fall into place.”


source nypost