by Jacob Goldstein

On the one hand: The more education you have, the more likely you are to have a job — in good times and bad.

This graph from Calculated Risk shows how consistent the relationship between education and unemployment has been for the past 20 years or so:

On the other hand: Lots of young people with college degrees are working low-skill jobs that wouldn't seem to require higher education.

 

This graph from The Economist shows that about one third of U.S. college grads age 25 to 29 are working low-skilled jobs:

But what does it all mean? Check out the Chronicle of Higher Ed's roundtable discussion on the question: Are too many students going to college?