This January 2021 report by the National Center for Education Statistics reports on the employment and educational outcomes of bachelor’s degree recipients 10 years after their degree completion. The data used for these findings is based on data from the 2008/18 Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study (B&B:08/18). This longitudinal data is the third follow-up in a nationally representative longitudinal study of students that completed the requirements for a bachelor’s degree during the 2007-08 academic year. The study is based on a sample of nearly 17,100 students.
- In 2018, approximately 10 years after completing their bachelor’s degree in 2007-08, 63 percent of graduates owned a home and 86 percent had a retirement account. Twenty percent of graduates reported a negative net worth, and 14 percent reported they did not meet essential expenses, such as mortgage or rent payments, utility bills, or important medicare care, in the past 12 months.
- Among the 2007-08 graduates still in student loan repayment from their undergraduate and/or graduate education, the average monthly loan payment in 2018 was $393 for those who earned their bachelor’s degree from a public institution, $469 for those who graduated from a private nonprofit institution and $485 or those who graduated from a private for-profit institution.
- Thirty-eight percent of 2007-08 graduates whose parents’ highest level of education was a high school diploma or less and 51 percent of graduates whose parents’ highest level of education was a graduate degree had earned an additional degree or certificate by 2018.
- During the 10 years after completion of a 2007-08 bachelor’s degree, graduates have been employed, on average, 85 percent of the time, unemployed an average of 7 percent of the time, and out of the labor force an average of 9 percent of the time.
- Among 2007-08 bachelor’s degree recipients who were working in 2018, about 85 percent were employed full time.
