Transcription
Now, Eye on America, our look at challenges and issues around the country, and we hope, solutions. Tonight, college graduates looking for work in a tight labor market. Meg Oliver now on what experts say grads can do to increase their chances of scoring that first job, and advice for employers as well.
So, how organized are you? Very. 23-year-old Jamie Delpiano thought her credentials would stand out: a stellar GPA, a degree in psychology, a master's in public policy at the University of Connecticut. She graduated in May, hoping to land a job as a child advocate.
How many applications have you sent out? Anywhere from like 10 to 20.
What's the response been like? I haven't had enough experience. And that's, of course, challenging because I can't get any experience without a job.
A recent report shows graduates are entering a turbulent economy with more competition for entry-level positions. Job postings have declined by 15%, while the number of applications has increased by 30%.
A lot of the jobs that I was looking for was like federal jobs or state jobs. Some of those jobs have been eliminated by budget cuts.
So, you're competing with people with a lot of experience. Exactly.
Delpiano's frustrations are felt by job seekers around the country. They had each done multiple internships. They were parts of community groups. Ryan McGonagal is talking about his own interns at Business.com, which helps small businesses looking to expand their reach. As they sent out resumes looking for work, he did a study tracking each one. Of the 311 applications those interns sent out, 87% didn't even get a response. Only five applicants received a scheduled interview. And the number of job offers? Zero.
Has it ever been this bad in the last decade? No.
Valerie Merchinelli is a career counselor. She advises taking a personal approach to each application. Write different cover letters, network in person, and steer clear of AI.
Don't use AI for any of your application materials because what a lot of employers are saying, if they think you are using AI, they think it's disingenuous, and it will automatically disqualify you.
As for employers, Martinelli says they need to put the human touch back into human resources.
What is your advice to HR managers and companies that are hiring right now? Take the three to five years' experience off of your job descriptions.
Delpiano is trying to remain optimistic, but with $15,000 in debt, it's not easy.
What are you learning from this experience? I'm learning that you have to have grit, but grit alone won't get it done. For this year's job-hunting grads like Jamie Delpiano, they're going to need plenty of patience and resilience as well. For Eye on America, I'm Meg Oliver in Ellington, Connecticut.
The unemployment rate for new college grads has recently surged, and some economists say businesses are now replacing entry-level jobs with artificial intelligence. Here's CBS's Alli Bowman.
Front gate. Front gate. 22-year-old Michael Maluso just earned his degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Connecticut.
Feel good? But this summer, he's back helping manage his hometown pool. He hasn't found a job in his field despite applying for nearly 200 positions.
Did you have any expectations about what the job market would be like when you graduated? I was told by a lot of people that I was going to get a job right out of college, and then all of a sudden, there's no jobs.
New research finds now, for the first time ever, the unemployment rate among recent college graduates has exceeded the national unemployment rate, ballooning to 6.6%. 6% over the past 12 months. Oxford Economics' Matthew Martin.
This is kind of goes against what you would expect. Those with higher educational attainment usually have better employment prospects than those with less educational attainment.
Martin's team believes companies are eliminating formative entry-level jobs, the work handed over to artificial intelligence. Tech companies are leading the way. AI is permeating every aspect of our lives. Nariman Farvardan, the president of Stevens Institute of Technology, says his school has been preparing for the AI revolution for the last 10 years. He expects disruption throughout the workforce will be bigger than the disturbance brought on by the introduction of the internet, and it could last up to 15 years.
I think AI, uh, has the potential to either augment or maybe totally replace jobs that are physically or cognitively repetitive. These jobs are not only done by entry people. There are certain people who do repetitive things for all of their life. Those jobs are in jeopardy.
Kaylee Totten just graduated from Stevens with her computer science degree. She did an internship with Verizon as a sophomore, and the company has now hired her.
I think something that's important with entry-level jobs is the networking and the opportunities that you make from it.
Farvan says his message to students today is the same as it always has been: Get an education that will last a lifetime.
We don't try to teach our students skills. We try to teach students a way to learn on their own for the rest of their lives.
He says workers who innovate alongside AI won't get left behind. Alli Bowman, CBS News, Eastchester, New York.
Hey, if you think the competition on the college basketball courts this month is tough, there's another kind of madness going on. High school seniors are battling to get into the college of their choice, and the competition is tougher than ever. This week, many of them will find out if they succeeded. Meg Oliver has tonight's Eye on America.
Near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Hitting the right note at Greendale High School meant a lot of work for seniors Nikolai Galuchia, Carly Anzac, and Brady McGravens.
What is your GPA? 4.0. 4.0. 3.82.
Despite stellar stats and robust resumes, they're facing major competition. The class of 2025 is the biggest and most diverse in history, with 3.9 million high schoolers graduating this year. That's why when it came to college applications, 18-year-old Galuchia wasn't taking any chances.
I applied to 33. 33.
Why did you apply to so many? I just really wanted to to broaden the options that were out there because it's really a lottery with these competitive schools.
Galia spent months on those 33 submissions but paid nothing. Fees typically range from $30 to $100, but many schools wave them to attract more applicants. And that's what's happened. Through March 1st, students turned in more than 8 million applications through the Common App, which is accepted at more than 1,000 schools.
Seeing people be in part of like 10 different clubs, be working since they were 12 years old, it's kind of hard not to compare yourself to that.
Another factor driving the 6% increase in applications: Many universities no longer require ACT or SAT scores, including those used to reduce the number of applications to more selective universities.
I hate rejecting students.
John Berdick spent 40 years screening college applications at Cornell, the University of Southern California, and the University of Rochester.
Why are we seeing a record number of applications this year? As the universities, uh, try to be more selective because that communicates value, uh, students at the same time say, "Well, I want to get into the most selective place because that, that creates value for me." And so there's just an incentive on both sides to apply to more places and to take more applications all the time.
How much time does an admissions officer really spend on each application? I don't want to break anybody's heart, but sometimes you know whether an application is going to go anywhere within 45 seconds.
So, which way would positive y^2 go?
Some universities have been overwhelmed by the flood of submissions, handing out more deferments and pushing back acceptance dates to deal with the volume, keeping anxious students waiting even longer.
No matter how many applications they get, I'm just hoping that they take the time to like read my essay and take good note of who I am.
After this 4 million-person graduation peak, some relief is expected as class sizes shrink over the next 15 years.
What is your advice to next year's applicants? I'd say don't try to be like somebody else. Just be the best you that you can be.
Advice that's easier to accept once the acceptances are in. For Eye on America, I'm Meg Oliver, Greendale, Wisconsin.
This afternoon, the Senate voted to confirm Linda McMahon as Education Secretary. But even before she gets in the door, the department is already making moves, ordering colleges and universities to end diversity initiatives or risk losing federal funding. The demand stems from the Supreme Court banning the use of race in admissions in 2023. In a report for the Atlantic entitled "The Race-Blind College Admissions Era is Off to a Weird Start," writer Rose Horowitch says the impact has been mixed. So we asked her why for tonight's interview.
Rose, I want to start with the headline of your story, which is that the race-blind college admissions era is off to a weird start. What makes it weird? It is weird because prior to the Supreme Court ruling, you know, every, almost everyone thought that universities would kind of see a big decline in their share of Black and Latino students. And at some places, certainly, that's what's happening. But there are these really notable exceptions where they've actually seen an increase in Black and Latino students after the end of affirmative action. So, that was just a really weird finding, right?
Let's start with the ones, uh, that that did drop. That was the story everybody was expecting, right? Yes. So, schools like MIT, they saw, I think, a 60% decline in their share of Black students compared to the years before the decision. Harvard, which was the school at the center of the litigation, you know, also saw big changes. Um, and so there were certainly a lot of schools that this did happen.
Yeah. Now, to the more interesting part of the weirdness, which is those elite schools where the where there was not this fall-off. What explains that? So that's led to to kind of these dueling theories. And one is that universities are able to maintain racial demographics without explicitly considering race, and the other is that they aren't following either the letter or the spirit of the Supreme Court ruling.
Now let's go to the possible possibility of cheating, and that is essentially what's the argument and who's making it. So the argument is that none of these other explanations fully, you know, explain how the universities got their results, um, because they haven't, you know, been shown to get rid of legacy admissions or these donor preferences, and because, you know, they aren't allowed to just give advantages to say an African-American student who writes about overcoming adversity, they would also have to give it to an Asian student who might write about that experience. So that, there, that argument is just that the universities kind of haven't explained how they've made up these numbers, even as they've been accused of cheating. And the people that are making it, I mean, I think the most well-known one is is Edward Blum, the leader of Students for Fair Admissions, which brought this case against Harvard, and he has written in letters to Yale, Princeton, and Duke. He's, you know, argued that they need to explain how they got their results, or else, you know, he will kind of have no other recourse.
And so, Rose, we have this this weird disparity. It's only one year in. What are the experts? What are you looking for in the next couple of years that would give us a signal about which way this story is going? Well, I think it was really interesting to watch, you know, one, if these cases do make it to the court, where do they come down? I also think we're going to see these schools, you know, they're under a lot of pressure kind of on both sides. Um, you know, schools that saw big declines in, you know, Black and Latino students are going to be under pressure to kind of make those up. And these schools that didn't see big declines, you know, they might come under increased scrutiny from the federal government.
With a college football championship game five nights away, we're examining college sports in tonight's America. It's been three and a half years since athletes have been able to be paid above board, and it's permanently changed college sports. But as CBS's Scott McFarland reports, the change and the money haven't been spread around equally.
Come on. Come on, Larry. Atlanta. Atlanta. This is Coach Greg Campy in his element. Triple-team fadeaway jumper. Good from Trey. His Oakland University Golden Grizzlies shocked the basketball world last year when the 13-point underdogs toppled perennial powerhouse Kentucky in the NCAA tournament.
There's nobody in the country that doesn't know what Oakland basketball is. Greg Campy, the head coach at Oakland University, in his first season. The biggest win in his 41 years at Oakland. But now, Campy says his biggest challenge comes off the court.
I spend my summers trying to raise money so I can buy players. Can you imagine?
College coaches are now saying that because it's true. Forget the old definition of amateur athlete. College athletes can now make millions before ever going pro, thanks to a set of NCAA rules called the NIL, which stands for name, image, and likeness. Since 2021, any athlete, especially big stars like Shador Sanders and Caitlyn Clark, can profit from commercial endorsements, jersey sales, even autograph sessions. What's really changing the game, though, is another part of the program that's morphed into a monster.
Let him shoot that shot.
Athletes getting paid just to play. When you recruit a player now, how early in the conversation does that player start asking about money? It's initial. It's right at the start. Right off the bat. Right off the start.
Schools are tapping deep-pocketed alums and donors to pay millions to high-level athletes, launching bidding wars for recruits and raids by schools on each other's rosters.
Go. Three of Campy's best players transferred to programs with more money shortly after last year's tournament success.
Some Power Five comes in and offers him $500,000. I can't offer him that. So, how do I tell a kid, don't go take $500,000?
So, how big is this NIL money? It is very big. In 2024, an estimated $1.67 billion was spent on student athletes, and most of it on men's sports. More than a billion dollars estimated on college football, and about $390 million for college basketball. So much money is leaping toward the two big men's sports. Sports that don't earn a profit are in danger of shrinking.
I didn't get into track and field for the money. Jaden O'Brien is a two-time national champion at Notre Dame. She's grateful for the endorsement money, but it's about a third of what the average football player makes.
I love the sport, and I'm good at it, and if I make a little money on the side, that's great. I'm not the old man yelling at the cloud, okay? I'm not that old guy. I want to be part of the solution.
Campy now plays teams that can spend millions more than Oakland and worries college sports may be headed toward an era of haves and have-nots.
I think that panic right now is that you're going to see the same 68 teams in the NCAA tournament every year. You're going to see the same 12 teams in the college football playoff every year. And I think the true fans, that's a panic.
A flood of money that could steal the slipper from Cinderella. For Eye on America, Scott McFarland, Rochester Hills, Michigan.
Back here at home, more than 150,000 borrowers had their student loans canceled today. President Biden said this afternoon he's forgiving some $1.2 billion of debt for those currently enrolled in a new repayment program. It comes as the annual tuition at a private nonprofit four-year college or university tops $41,000, and that is up 4% from just one year ago. CBS's Carter Evans takes an in-depth look at the high price of a college education.
I knew that college was going to be quite expensive, no matter where I went. Freshman Talia Day is among 700 students currently enrolled at Pomona College, a prestigious school with a hefty price tag. Gabrielle Starr is Pomona's president.
Every time we raise tuition, it doesn't feel good.
Between 1980 and 2023, the average price of college tuition, fees, and room and board in the U.S. skyrocketed 155%.
What would you say is the single biggest expense? Single biggest expense is people.
Many colleges and universities now operate like small cities, and critics say that's led to administrative bloat. There are now three times as many administrators and staffers as there are teaching faculty at leading schools. Demand for degrees is also driving up costs.
I feel like young people have gotten the sense that in order to be a part of the American dream today, you have to have your bachelor's degree diploma hanging on the wall.
Economist Beth Akre says easy access to loans compounds the problem.
We can't just be telling people a bachelor's degree at any cost is the golden ticket. And so people are signing on the dotted line basically at whatever price it takes to get them in and through.
So what's the solution here? If we get students and their parents to think about, "What am I paying here versus what am I getting?" Then we really force institutions to, you know, check themselves.
But even at the same school, the actual cost can be different for each student. We give out a lot of financial aid. At Pomona, 58% of students get some sort of aid, bringing their tuition closer to $16,000 a year, but many still rely on loans that will take years to pay back.
Is it worth it? All of the studies show that if you graduate from college, it's worth it. It's worth it in terms of the salary that you earn, and it's worth it in terms of the other opportunities that it opens to you.
Carter Evans, CBS News, Claremont, California.
Tonight, we go in-depth on the issue of food insecurity on college campuses. Recent studies show at least one in three students is dealing with this growing problem. CBS's Elise Preston shows us how one university is serving up a solution.
At the University of California, Davis, students may have an appetite for knowledge, but this line isn't for textbooks. It's to receive food. Rent is unbelievably expensive, and it's unfortunate that food and groceries and just basic needs costs are so gigantic. Senior Aaron Cashion showed up 90 minutes before the doors opened at the on-campus food pantry.
I literally structure my class schedules around being able to come to the pantry.
It's run by students, many of whom are working here because they found help here. It feels good to get back and know that I'm like, I need it here.
Can you describe what it feels like when you don't know where your next meal is coming from? Just like, really like anxious.
Leslie Kemp runs the university's basic needs center. She believes it's important to offer items like fresh produce, some of which is grown on the student farm and donated to the pantry.
A dollar today buys a third of the commodities that it bought when I was in school.
There are now close to 800 food pantries on college campuses. A decade ago, there were just 80. UC Davis was one of the first to open up its pantry, buried in the basement. Now, the pantry is at the heart of the campus. It's not intended for those with a meal plan or who can afford groceries, but it's open to anyone with a student ID, no questions asked.
Do you fear that that people will take advantage of the system? If we've got 10 students coming in and three didn't need it, I'm okay with that as long as we get those seven who did need it.
What kind of load does that lift off of you? Oh, huge.
For Aaron Cashion, a dozen eggs. She's stretching her dollars, but only taking what she needs. Pasta.
You're being aware of everyone else who is in this struggle with you. I, I think that's kind of what comes with a gift economy. Let me make sure I leave some behind for the next person.
No regrets, no stigma. And one very big benefit would absolutely affect my academic performance. It would definitely affect mental health without being able to do this. That's certainly food for thought. Elise Preston, CBS News, Davis.