America's Increasingly Broken College System, In Three Charts

For many years, college was a pretty sure path to a good, stable job. Now, an entire generation is graduating school and learning that promise isn't there anymore.

The job market has changed rapidly, but higher education hasn't, and it's having disastrous results.

A recent study from McKinsey and educational technology company Chegg found that over half of recent graduates regret their choice of school or major.

Too often, students are getting bad information when they apply, poor advice when they're in school, and insufficient guidance when they graduate.

They're ending up in jobs that they're overqualified for:

McKinsey ON Society

Though they're slightly better off, even graduates of the top 100 schools aren't getting jobs in their field of expertise:

McKinsey On Society

Where are students going? Far too many end up in retail and restaurants, despite having other plans:

McKinsey On Society

These these are fixable problems, perhaps by bringing the cost of college down, or expanding the curriculum to include more skills training.

But the change needs to be rapid, otherwise we'll have a growing generation of students who graduate in debt and without jobs.

Find the full report here