Accounting & Investing Info for San Antonio A & M
3/13/24
Roughly half of college graduates end up in jobs where their degrees aren’t needed, and that underemployment has lasting implications for workers’ earnings and career paths.
That is the key finding of a new study tracking the career paths of more than 10 million people who entered the job market over the past decade. It suggests that the number of graduates in jobs that don’t make use of their skills or credentials—52%—is greater than previously thought, and underscores the lasting importance of that first job after graduation.
Of the graduates in non-college-level jobs a year after leaving college, the vast majority remained underemployed a decade later, according to researchers at labor analytics firm Burning Glass Institute and nonprofit Strada Education Foundation, which analyzed the résumés of workers who graduated between 2012 and 2021.
More than any other factor analyzed—including race, gender and choice of university—what a person studies determines their odds of getting on a college-level career track. Internships are also critical.
The findings add fuel to the debate over the value of a college education as its cost has soared—and whether universities are producing the kind of knowledge workers that employers say they need.
“You’re told your entire life, ‘Go to college, get a bachelor’s degree and your life is gonna be gravy after that,’” said Alexander Wolfe, 29 years old, a 2018 graduate from Northern Kentucky University who currently works security at a corporate facility in the Cincinnati area. “In reality, it hasn’t really helped me that much
The past decade’s hot labor market doesn’t appear to have dented the vast pool of underemployed, college-educated workers. Getting stuck early on in such jobs can ripple across a lifetime of earnings, since the premium from a college degree multiplies over the span of a person’s career.
Bachelor’s degree holders in college-level jobs earn nearly 90% more than people with just a high-school diploma in their 20s, according to a Burning Glass analysis of 2022 U.S. Census Bureau data.
By comparison, underemployed college graduates earn 25% more than high-school graduates.
52%
45%
45%
Underemployed
1 Year
post-grad
5 Years
10 Years
graduation
College-level jobs
48%
55%
55%
Source: Burning Glass Institute analysis of Lightcast Career Histories Database.
Roughly half of college graduates end up in jobs where their degrees aren’t needed, and that underemployment has lasting implications for workers’ earnings and career paths.
That is the key finding of a new study tracking the career paths of more than 10 million people who entered the job market over the past decade. It suggests that the number of graduates in jobs that don’t make use of their skills or credentials—52%—is greater than previously thought, and underscores the lasting importance of that first job after graduation.
Of the graduates in non-college-level jobs a year after leaving college, the vast majority remained underemployed a decade later, according to researchers at labor analytics firm Burning Glass Institute and nonprofit Strada Education Foundation, which analyzed the résumés of workers who graduated between 2012 and 2021.
More than any other factor analyzed—including race, gender and choice of university—what a person studies determines their odds of getting on a college-level career track. Internships are also critical.
The findings add fuel to the debate over the value of a college education as its cost has soared—and whether universities are producing the kind of knowledge workers that employers say they need.
“You’re told your entire life, ‘Go to college, get a bachelor’s degree and your life is gonna be gravy after that,’” said Alexander Wolfe, 29 years old, a 2018 graduate from Northern Kentucky University who currently works security at a corporate facility in the Cincinnati area. “In reality, it hasn’t really helped me that much.”
68%
60%
57%
45%
Recreation and
wellness
Public safety
and security
Other
of college graduates
do not have a job that
requires a degree or
college-level skills
57%
54%
55%
Business
(management, marketing, HR)
Visual and
preforming arts
Humanities and
cultural studies
Overall average
47%
53%
53%
51%
49%
Communication
and journalism
Psychology
Social sciences
Biological and
biomedical sciences
Interdisciplinary
studies
44%
44%
35%
36%
34%
Compute
and statistics
29%
23%
26%
30%
Business
(math intensive)
Engineering
Architecture
and planning
Health professions
and related programs
Source: Burning Glass Institute analysis of Lightcast Career Histories Database.
The past decade’s hot labor market doesn’t appear to have dented the vast pool of underemployed, college-educated workers. Getting stuck early on in such jobs can ripple across a lifetime of earnings, since the premium from a college degree multiplies over the span of a person’s career.
Bachelor’s degree holders in college-level jobs earn nearly 90% more than people with just a high-school diploma in their 20s, according to a Burning Glass analysis of 2022 U.S. Census Bureau data.
By comparison, underemployed college graduates earn 25% more than high-school graduates.
“It’s not that a degree isn’t worth it,” said Matt Sigelman, president of Burning Glass Institute.
“It’s worth it to too few people.”
Coming from a family where some relatives didn’t finish college and later struggled to get promotions or better jobs, Wolfe thought his degree would help him dodge those kinds of career roadblocks.
Instead, Wolfe, whose integrative studies major combined his credits in education, history and psychology, has held a string of jobs in sales, retail and food service, including one that ended in a layoff. Looking back, he said he wishes he’d taken time off before college to explore potential career options, and worries his interdisciplinary degree doesn’t stand out in the job market.
Alexander Wolfe, 29, worries that his first job after college pigeonholed him into a career he didn’t want. Photo: John Casablancas Modeling and Career Center
He also regrets taking an entry-level sales job in logistics after months of fruitless job hunting after graduation. He thought it was better than working reception jobs or serving food at a local country club, but now suspects settling into a specific industry made it harder for him to find work elsewhere.
“I would stress to anyone out there, hold out as long as you can” for the right first job, he said. “You don’t want to pigeonhole yourself into something you don’t want to do.”
Wolfe’s predicament points to how sticky underemployment can be.
Once a graduate’s first two or three jobs are clustered around one industry or set of tasks—say, an aspiring marketing strategist who takes a couple of food-service supervisor roles to pay the bills—it’s harder to hop onto another career lane, said Joseph Fuller, a management professor who co-leads the Managing the Future of Work initiative at Harvard Business School. Thanks to the way online hiring algorithms scan applicants’ work histories, the next role that person is now most likely to be considered for is a store manager position, while a break with a corporate marketing department is even less likely.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, not all degrees in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, disciplines are a sure bet to landing a job that reflects a college education, the study found.
Nearly half of people who majored in biology and biomedical sciences—47%—remained underemployed five years after graduating. Likewise, business majors less focused on quantitative skills, such as marketing and human resources, were twice as likely to be underemployed than those with math-intensive business degrees, such as accounting or finance. The data cover graduates who didn’t get master’s or other advanced degrees after college.
The Burning Glass/Strada study found that most of the graduates who don’t find work reflecting their degrees are what they call “severely underemployed,” meaning they’re in jobs that only require a high school education or less. Five years after graduation, 88% of underemployed graduates remained in this category, working jobs such as office support, retail sales and food service.
“We all need to be thinking of that first post-college job as a high-stakes milestone, and give it the attention it deserves,” said Stephen Moret, Strada’s president and chief executive.
Securing even one internship during college significantly improves the odds of landing a college-level job upon graduation, according to the study. For humanities and psychology majors, the rate of underemployment five years after college dropped by a quarter with an internship. Among social-sciences majors, it fell by 40%.
Colleges are recognizing the key role internships play. At Tufts University, environmental studies majors complete at least 100 hours of internship experience. Roughly 50% to 70% of its students go into environmental work after graduation, a figure that includes students who take environmental studies as a second major, the program estimates. Other institutions, like George Mason University, have set up scholarship funds to subsidize students who take unpaid internships.
Nearly all undergrads at Northeastern University in Boston complete at least one six-month internship. Six months after graduation, 91% of working graduates report having jobs related to their major, according to the school’s most recent data.
n hindsight, Brennan Bence, 23, says he wished he’d gotten more internship experience while at Dakota Wesleyan University in South Dakota. The 2022 graduate majored in theater with a minor in business, realizing later in his studies that he wanted to go into marketing in tech or online gaming.
By then, the pandemic had winnowed his internship possibilities, and he’d devoted much of his summers to stock theater. “I kind of robbed myself of a lot of those experiences,” he says.
It took months and more than 500 rejection emails to land a decent-paying job back in his home state, Washington, as an office administrator for the local county’s public defender office. He still aspires to work in tech or gaming but says he may have to pursue an M.B.A. to reset his career path.
Newer college graduates face other challenges landing a first job as the market for white-collar work cools. Artificial intelligence promises to revamp some of the entry-level work grads do, such as basic coding and content creation, business leaders and researchers say. And many recent graduates say the pandemic wreaked lasting havoc on their transition into the workforce.
Maroua Ouadani, 24, couldn’t find work for more than a year after her job ended. She now expects her connections and entrepreneurship, rather than her hospitality degree, to be most helpful for her future career. Photo: Maroua Ouadani
Maroua Ouadani, 24, says she struggled in her postgraduation job in sales at a travel company in 2021. Working remotely, she couldn’t listen to and learn from colleagues as they closed deals, and a subsequent move into a front-desk reception role was also unfulfilling because most of her colleagues worked from home. She soon left to work as an executive assistant for a social-media influencer, but the job ended months later.
After that, Ouadani couldn’t find work for more than a year. She applied for jobs, including in social-media marketing and production. Eventually a staffing agency helped her land an administrative-assistant position. In her future career, she said, she expects to rely on her connections and own entrepreneurship, instead of her degree in hospitality.
“This job market shows how replaceable you are,” she said.
Thursday March 7, 2024
While you talk about the quality of your wares, you have your cheaper competitor where he cannot touch you. The breach between you is longer than his arm. When you begin to talk about prices, you are absolutely at his mercy. There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man’s lawful prey. This is the doctrine of commercial foreordination, against which it is useless to contend.
Read the origin of some man cannot make a little worse.
here and reflect on what we are learning from Stanley Marcus about his vision for Neiman Marcus.
March 5, 2024
Check out this url for a great robotics site.
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2/29/2024
2/22/2024
Chris Pettit, who perpetrated one of the largest swindles of client money in Texas history, may spend the rest of his life in prison.
U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia on Wednesday sentenced the 56-year-old disgraced attorney to 50 years in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to three counts each of wire fraud and money laundering in connection with stealing tens of millions of dollars from clients.
About 50 of Pettit’s victims attended the sentencing.
“I will tell you all, I’ve been on the bench — next month will be 30 years,” Garcia told them. “This is the absolute worst white-collar fraud case I’ve ever had.”
RELATED: ‘He’s destroyed people’s lives’: Chris Pettit’s victims turn out to see him plead guilty to crimes.
He sentenced Pettit to 15 years for each of the wire fraud charges, to be served consecutively. He also was sentenced to five years on each of the money laundering counts. Those will be served concurrently but were stacked on top of the wire fraud charges.
The judge opted to go outside sentencing guidelines — which called for between 19.5 and 24.5 years — based on Pettit’s “extreme conduct,” the number of victims, the financial hardship caused them and his role as an attorney to “build trust, which contributed to the crime.”
How much Pettit will owe in restitution and where he’ll serve his sentence is yet to be decided.
His crimes have had devastating consequences, upending dozens of his former clients’ lives while destroying their retirements and, in some cases, depleting fortunes they planned to pass on to heirs. Some victims have said family members died from the stress.
The ramifications for Pettit have been severe, as well. Not only was he locked up, his only living brother — an employee of the law firm — died by suicide amid the mounting scrutiny into Pettit’s actions. And Pettit’s young son, for whom he was the sole parent, went to live with his nanny in a mobile home because Pettit had no immediate surviving family members to care for the boy.
HOW IT BEGAN: San Antonio attorney faces multiple lawsuits for allegedly stealing millions of dollars from clients
Pettit specialized in estate planning, handled trust and probate matters, and provided financial advice to clients. In some instances, he had recommended they invest in municipal bonds that apparently didn’t even exist.
Garcia had a gaunt-looking Pettit, shackled and dressed in navy blue prison garb, turn around at the podium to face his victims.
“To each and every one of the victims in this room, first of all, I want to apologize to you,” Pettit said. “I want to let you know that I am heartbroken by what you’ve gone through. Most of you were friends of mine. I really meant that. I know most of you don’t believe that now.”
He vowed to them that he would do everything “within my power” to help them get their money back. Many of the victims have heard that before but they have yet to see much, if any, of the money they lost.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelly Stephenson said Pettit has not cooperated in his criminal case or in the bankruptcy cases for himself and his defunct law firm.
“In my mind, unless he gave the money back to each and every victim, there is no cooperation,” Garcia said.
The judge heard from nine of the victims before handing down the sentence.
Many of them owned farm or ranch land that had been passed down from generation to generation. Among them was Loretta Persyn, whose family had been Pettit clients for nearly 20 years.
RELATED: Chris Pettit’s forgotten clients: He settled lawsuits for Latino clients who didn’t get their money
“He stole from our family basically three generations of farming,” she told the judge. “That would be 120 years and that’s what he should get for his crime, and it should not be concurrent.”
She added, “Personally, I pray for his death … and let this be the end.”
Robert Kintigh said Pettit’s actions contributed to his elderly mother’s death.
“It just wiped our family completely out,” he said. “He just totally destroyed us, completely and utterly destroyed us. I just hope the court realizes just how much damage he’s done. It’s just evil.”
Some of Pettit’s clients suspected something was amiss in 2021 and early 2022, prompting many of them to sue him and his law firm. The San Antonio Express-News was first to report on a slew of lawsuits against Pettit in May 2022. In the earliest case, a judge in San Antonio ruled a physician who was a Pettit client could recover almost $2.9 million in actual damages and nearly $8.7 million in punitive damages from the lawyer.
Less than two weeks after the story appeared, Pettit filed for bankruptcy protection for himself and his law firm. He listed $27.8 million in assets and $115.2 million in debts in his personal case — making it one of the largest individual bankruptcies ever in San Antonio.
Days later, the Texas Supreme Court accepted Pettit’s resignation from the State Bar of Texas. He had surrendered his law license in lieu of discipline.
As his bankruptcy case unfolded over the next several months, Pettit earned a reputation as an uncooperative debtor who obfuscated when asked direct questions. He was unwilling or unable to say where his former clients’ money went, saying repeatedly that he was looking into it.
At least some of the money went to purchase multimillion-dollar homes in San Antonio and Orlando and a collection of high-end automobiles and to pay household expenses, but most of the missing money has yet to be accounted for.
Creditors in the bankruptcy cases submitted roughly 200 claims totaling $259 million, far more than the liabilities Pettit listed. His bankruptcy lawyer has questioned the authenticity of some claims, saying creditors may be seeking more than they’re owed to the detriment of honest creditors. The bankruptcy court has yet to consider the claims.
The criminal charges against Pettit relate to about $60 million in losses, a prosecutor told Garcia in October.
In return for Pettit’s guilty plea, prosecutors agreed to drop two wire fraud charges. He could have received a maximum of 20 years on each of the wire fraud counts and 10 years on each of the money laundering charges.
Chief U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Craig Gargotta sent Pettit to jail in September 2022 after finding him in civil contempt for violating a court order prohibiting him from transferring or disposing of any personal property.
A few months later, Gargotta ordered Pettit’s release after finding he had cleared himself of the contempt charge.
But he never regained his freedom. The day of the order, a federal grand jury indicted him on five counts of wire fraud and three counts of money laundering. He pleaded not guilty. A judge granted prosecutors’ request that Pettit remained locked up at the Karnes County Detention Facility.
Rather than stand trial, though, Pettit cut a deal with prosecutors in September and pleaded guilty in October.
He admitted running his law practice as a Ponzi-type scheme, making false promises to induce clients to entrust him with their money. He used a portion of it to enrich himself and other portions to hide his scheme by making “payouts” to some clients, prosecutors said.
How much he’ll have to return to his victims is an open question.
Two weeks ago, prosecutors filed a motion to separate the punishment phase of Pettit’s sentencing from the restitution phase, citing the intricacies and difficulties in calculating “with sufficient precision” how much is owed. That’s due in part to “Pettit’s own lack of recordkeeping, and the complexity of the scheme,” prosecutors said.
Pettit and his criminal defense lawyer said they preferred both matters be handled together or moved to another day. Garcia granted prosecutors’ request and kept Wednesday’s punishment phase in place, possibly because the U.S. Attorney’s Office had sent letters to victims alerting them of the sentencing date.
RELATED: Prominent law firm Watts Guerra joins Chris Pettit case to explore potential claims against 4 banks
The Mandatory Victims Restitution Act requires defendants who commit crimes “by fraud or deceit” to make restitution. It isn’t the only avenue of recovery for victims, however. They’ve already filed proofs of claim in the bankruptcy and many have filed a breach of fiduciary duty lawsuit against various banks where Pettit’s firm kept accounts while in business.
Gargotta, the bankruptcy judge, though, cautioned those in attendance at a Feb. 7 hearing about the “three rails” of recovery.
“I just think it’s important that everyone understand — one recovery,” the judge said, reminding lawyers that if their clients get their money back from one source they can’t seek it from another.
About 40 former Pettit clients have applied for recovery from the State Bar of Texas’ client security fund. A bar committee has yet to review those applications so no payments have been made, said Claire Reynolds, the bar’s public affairs counsel. The payments are capped at $40,000 for each applicant, however.
2/21/2024
By the way Bezos sold 50 million shares of AMZN this month worth $85 B. Insiders are usually pretty shrewd.
Now MSFT AA{L ad AMZN three of the Magnificent Seven are in the DJIA. WAG has lost 80% of its value since 2014 while AMZN has risen 725%.
The index is chasing great performers, is this move too late to save the index?
Now the add AMZN when it is the most expensive it ahas ever been. In retrospect this should have been done i n 2018 when Wagreens WBA was falling and AMZN was rising.
2/21/2024
Two of Japan's biggest airlines report cheating by their drivers on required exams.
JAL found, through an internal investigation prompted by an employee’s report,
As always a tip line alerted the airline to the fraud, this is far and away the most frequent way frauds are discovered.
Wed 2/21/2024
Dennis, a heartfelt thank you to you and your students for the very nice note I found on my desk this morning. That really made my day…such a nice gesture!
I hope my session with your class was helpful. I certainly enjoyed my time with them.
Best wishes to all for a successful semester!
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Eric WhittingtonDirector of Marketing
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Mond2/19/24
ACADEMIC &
PROFESSIONAL
CONFERENCES:
A Beginner’s
Workshop
SPEAKERS
VIRIDIANA GOMEZ
ARIEL ROBLES
LYNDSY STACY
ENGLISH M.A. STUDENT
BIOLOGY M.S. STUDENT
BIOLOGY M.S. STUDENT
THIS WORKSHOP
FEBRUARY 26, 2024
ABOUT
This student-led workshop will
introduce A&M-SA students to the
world of academic and professional
conferences. Learn how to get the
most out of these experiences, put
your best foot forward, and have fun
in the process!
12:30-1:30PM / STEC 242
Professor Elam 