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Student debt may hurt chances at full-time employment:
A recently published study led by The University of Texas at Arlington says that student debt may hurt students' chances of securing full-time employment due to added pressure in their job search.
[...] The researchers say that having student loan debt is a financial stressor to students that leads to additional stress during their job search, which in turn can harm their chances of securing a full-time job.
"Student loan debt creates an anticipated loss of financial resources, which brings higher levels of stress to student job-seekers," said Froidevaux, who is a fellow of the Eunice and James L. West Distinguished Professorship. Her research interests include career transitions, retirement and aging in the workplace, and identity negotiation.
The more financially strained individuals are, the less likely they are to have sufficient energy and motivation to invest in their search for a successful job placement, she said. Results from the study also suggest that students who are more stressed about their student loans were likelier to work more hours in part-time jobs. This stress in searching for a job reduced the likelihood of securing full-time employment upon graduation from college. The research team used data from 1,248 graduating seniors from four different American universities.
The current level of student loan debt in the USA is $1.6 trillion, above credit card debt and auto loans, and second only to mortgage debt.
Journal Reference:
Ariane Froidevaux et al, Is student loan debt good or bad for full-time employment upon graduation from college?, Journal of Applied Psychology (2020). DOI: 10.1037/apl0000487
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2020, @11:21AM (2 children)
As opposed to having the perseverance to self-study such that you're more than capable of doing the job spending years in a classroom? Many employers are very, very short-sighted. But I guess if you want to build a house of cards, that's a good way to do it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 27 2020, @02:09PM (1 child)
And how do you quickly measure that? One of the main reasons why having a degree shows up on so many applications is that it's a quick screen. Even if somebody does genuinely have equivalent knowledge via a Will Hunting style personal improvement binge, it would take hours to really know if they have the goods or are just really good at bullshitting people. On top of which, the company would be susceptible to discrimination lawsuits.
The reality is that it's not normally an either or situation, I've got several degrees and will be getting another one soon, but I've also amassed a rather impressive amount of content knowledge in other areas as well via self-study.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday August 29 2020, @06:43PM
In theory they're hiring someone to work there for years. Shouldn't it be worth hours to see if they can actually do the job?
As more employers require a degree, the less having a degree actually means to the likely job performance. It ceases to be a real distinction. If you force everyone to get a degree to be employable, you see many people just going for the paper rather than going to take full advantage of the learning opportunity and actually getting something out of it besides the paper. You're back to needing hours to see if they know anything or they're just good at bullshitting.
Meanwhile, your process is selecting for people who have a big debt to pay off just to break even. They'll be needing more pay if that's going to happen.
The real solution is to bring back the entry level and probationary positions. That's where you find out if a young and inexperienced person has what it takes to learn the job and be trusted with actual responsibility.
It's interesting that employers filter by degree, and then moan that they can't find enough qualified people. Perhaps they're filtering them out.