Must Read: NYT on Limited Career Opportunities for Black College Grads
By: John Rice, MLT Founder & CEO
The New York Times recently published an article by Patricia Cohen on how black college graduates struggle to find career-launching jobs at a disproportionate rate to their white counterparts:
“College graduates have survived both the recession and ho-hum recovery far better than those without a degree, but blacks who finished four years of college are suffering from unemployment rates that are painfully high compared with their white counterparts. Among recent graduates ages 22 to 27, the jobless rate for blacks last year was 12.4 percent versus 4.9 percent for whites, said John Schmitt, a senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.”
It is a tragedy for many young minorities to successfully graduate from college and struggle to get the jobs they are qualified for out of the gate. MLT has recognized this crisis for over a decade and sees this as more evidence that developing our young people for career success needs to be a national priority.
For minorities, graduating from college is not enough for career success. MLT’s model of the right playbook and coaching helps to drive better outcomes. MLT’s Career Prep program directly addresses this problem by putting minority college sophomores on the fast track to launch their careers once they graduate. As Cohen also notes, getting a good start after graduation can have lasting impact on the career trajectory of college graduates.
“The unemployment gap between black and white college graduates narrows as people grow older. Last year it was 3.5 percent for whites, versus 5.7 percent for blacks. But the delay in finding a job can reverberate years down the road, reducing wages over a lifetime.”