May 18, 2011 1:32PM 

# One-third of College Degrees Wasted? 

By [Neal McCluskey](https://www.cato.org/people/neal-mccluskey) 

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The most recent, comprehensive Pew [higher education survey](http://pewsocialtrends.org/2011/05/15/is-college-worth-it/) has gotten a lot of coverage for its findings on how important the public thinks college is, its financial payoff for grads, etc. For some reason, though, by far the most interesting statistic in the report has gotten roughly zero play, either from Pew itself or media coverage of the report: “Among all college graduates, 33% say they are in a job that does not require a college degree.”

Wait. One-third of all college graduates are in jobs that don’t call for a college education? So one-third of all college degrees are quite possibly total economic wastes? (To be fair, no doubt some of those grads are looking for jobs requiring a degree, mitigating this somewhat. On the flip side, many jobs probably require a degree without actually requiring college-level skills, counterbalancing that.)

In light of this, can someone please tell me why President Obama wants the United States to [lead the world](http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=ao_WPhFqAhzM) in the precentage of its population with a college degree by 2020? And please, explain why Washington furnished over [$113 billion in student aid](http://trends.collegeboard.org/student_aid/report_findings/indicator/Total_Student_Aid_Adjusted_for_Inflation) in the 2009-10 academic year? I’d really like to know.

##### Related Tags 

[Education](https://www.cato.org/education), [General](https://www.cato.org/general), [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy), [Center for Educational Freedom](https://www.cato.org/center-educational-freedom) 

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