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The Labor Market for Recent College Graduates
A New York Fed data page on how recent graduates fare, with outcomes for 73 majors
Why it’s worth your time
The New York Fed's tracker lets you look up how graduates of a given major are doing in the job market, in a few minutes. It follows unemployment, underemployment and pay for 22-to-27-year-old graduates back to 1990, and its table puts 73 majors side by side. A quick look can help before choosing a major or a graduate program, or when a first job search feels harder than you expected.
Outcomes for recent graduates, by major
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How to get it
Opens their site. We don’t copy it here; we’d rather they get the read.
- Explore the data.
Start with the quarterly highlights at the top, then open the outcomes-by-major table. For each major it lists the unemployment rate, the underemployment rate, early-career and mid-career median pay, and the share who hold a graduate degree. The notes under each chart say who counts as a recent graduate and how underemployment is defined.
- Look up your major.
Find your major, or the two you're choosing between, and write down the underemployment rate and the early- and mid-career median pay. Then write one question the numbers raise for you, such as what graduates who found degree-level jobs did differently, and ask someone a few years ahead of you.
Good moments for this: before choosing a majorduring a slow first job searchbefore applying to grad school
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Making it work for you
Every workplace is different. Here’s what to think about before you start, and what might get in the way.
Things to think about
A major's median pay says little about the spread, and choices like internships, location and the first job you take can matter as much as the line in the table.
What might make this harder
Look at the majors nearest yours in the table and at their graduate-degree share, then ask two people a few years out with your degree which paths worked for them. A table row describes a group, and your path can differ.
Questions people ask
What is the New York Fed's Labor Market for Recent College Graduates?
A regularly updated New York Fed data page tracking unemployment, underemployment and wages for US college graduates aged 22 to 27 since 1990, with a table of outcomes for 73 majors. It draws on Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor Statistics survey data.
What does underemployment mean for college graduates?
Working in a job that typically doesn't require a college degree. The New York Fed counts a job as a college job if at least half the people doing it say a bachelor's degree is needed.
Which majors have the lowest underemployment?
In the figures published in February 2026, based on 2024 data, nursing had the lowest rate, at about 13 percent, followed by several engineering majors and education. Criminal justice and performing arts were among the highest, near two-thirds.
Is it a hard time to be a new college graduate?
The tracker's second-quarter 2026 update called conditions challenging, with recent graduates' unemployment at about 5.6 percent and underemployment at about 42 percent. How that plays out for you depends a lot on your field.
What it says, and how it holds up
Stories about graduates pouring coffee with a liberal arts degree are easy to find, and the numbers to check them against are public. This New York Fed web feature, whose page introduces economists Jaison R. Abel and Richard Deitz, has tracked how recent college graduates do in the job market since 1990. What a degree leads to can vary a great deal by major: in some, most graduates work in jobs that need the degree, and in others half or more don't.
It's a data tool more than a read. Charts compare recent graduates' unemployment with that of all workers and of young people without degrees, follow underemployment over three decades, and set graduates' pay against that of high school graduates the same age. The outcomes-by-major table is where a decision about a major gets concrete.
Its notes spell out what the figures leave out. The figures are national, cover only people with at least a bachelor's degree and leave out anyone still in school, and the major-level data come from a single year. The wage notes caution that some of the pay gap between graduates and non-graduates may reflect differences in aptitude. A gap in federal data delayed updates in late 2025, and October 2025 figures are estimated. The page also links to a New York Fed article arguing, in its title, that college is still a good investment despite rising costs.
For someone already working and wondering about going back for a degree, most of these figures are about 22-to-27-year-olds, and the mid-career pay is for bachelor's holders aged 35 to 45 in general, not a 35-year-old giving up a salary to change course. That choice probably needs your own numbers, such as the program's cost, the pay you'd forgo and what people who made the same switch say happened next.
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Picked by Truest and described in our own words. The original belongs to its creator. Last updated October 9, 2026. We sell a career membership; where that’s relevant above, we say so.