What That College Degree Is Worth

Now that my daughter has finally graduated from college, she is looking for a job in journalism, writing, communications, or related field. I’m about to blow an artery out I’m so mad at the Republicans for trashing our economy right when my darling daughter is entering the job market with her hard-earned degree. And her brother will be close behind when he graduates next year, probably December 2009. She says she’s going to try to get a publisher to give her an advance to write a book about how her college education is worthless because she can’t get work. She’s still bartending, while sending out literally hundreds of resumes weekly via email through several major job boards, like Monster and Yahoo Jobs. Speaking of Yahoo, did you see that Yahoo is laying off 1,200 workers? Businesses laying off workers. Experienced workers unable to retire or re-entering the job market because their retirement savings went down the drain. What’s a gal like my lovely daughter, with no experience and a hard-earned college degree, to do? I keep telling her that YES, a college degree is worth all the work, it shows strength of character and intelligence and perseverance and all that other good stuff. That it WILL get her a better-paying job, a job she loves, in the long run. I tell her to hang in there, keep applying, something will come along. What else can a Jewish Mom do? If I had the bucks I’d hire her myself to run my shoe-string publishing company. But the truth is, I’m barely working also in this lousy economy. I expect my grant writing to pick up in the next couple of months, it always does once the Feds start announcing all the Education Grants. Meanwhile, I’m Amy-the-Grantwriter, and I want McCain and Obama to speak to me like they did to Joe-the-Plumber. I am the middle class and I need help.