Column:

Students facing grim prospects

By Jordan Stein

Published Sept. 22, 2009

As a senior "officially" entering the work force in May, it has come to my attention those of us getting our first real jobs after college might be screwed.

It's no secret it's hard to get a job right now. Unemployment is up, and the economy appears to be stagnating. This is terrifying to me — and should be to all students. We've been told pursuing an education was a smart investment and would help us find good jobs.

Only three years ago, when I entered college, those things still seemed true. The economy seemed strong. As we know now, the country was headed for disaster, but no one was admitting it. It was easy to get money for school, easy to get a credit card, easy to find a job. But now, with millions entering their last year of school, we see the future is not so bright. Not only would we have trouble finding those dream jobs, we might not be able to find jobs at all — at least not the kind of jobs we spent four years and thousands of dollars to get.

Those of us who chose to go to college will be facing a job market with very few openings and will not be able to compete with educated, experienced and unemployed rivals. So, in just a few months, and in the years following, we will have more students pouring into the job market. If the economy keeps shrinking, where will we all go?

Questions like this and my personal proximity to the issue make me understand why the government bailouts were necessary. I know many felt swindled, and I was one of them. It was easy to think the government was taking our money and giving it to people who had proven they weren't responsible enough for it. But how many jobs, over time, would have been lost if the government hadn't stepped in?

Perhaps our lawmakers, who likely had parents who either lived through or were born into the Great Depression, were desperately trying to keep America from sinking that low again. No one can accurately predict how America would fare through another depression. And this time, the world is too dangerous a playground to count on a war to fix a failing economy.

Maybe my situation has made me paranoid. Plenty of the 2010 graduating class will find great jobs that pay the rent and student loans. But not all of us will. Some of us will find ourselves unemployed, hoping for the great opportunity we've been promised to come along.

I think if the government has to interfere in the private business sector every once in a while to keep Americans employed, it's OK by me. I don't think that makes me a communist, anti-capitalist or Michael Moore. I think it makes me pro-American.

Capitalism has proven itself to be a system that is subject to random instabilities over long periods of time. The fluctuations of globalized economy only reinforce those instabilities. Even small mandates such as incentives to keep jobs at home and minimum wage reasonable are ways to keep our system working. Making sure the building block of capitalism, the American laborer, is safe and strong is the best way to ensure capitalism thrives.

In order to preserve our economic system, the government has an obligation to make sure the whole thing doesn't collapse under its own weight. That was the reasoning behind the bailout, and as an entering worker, I think that's OK.

Stein is a senior political science major at MU. She can be reached at jesf25@mizzou.edu.