I think there is a difference between underpaid and underemployed. Underemployed implies you are either working part-time when you want full-time, or you aren't using all of your skill sets. Luck Better Skill mentioned it above as well.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/underemployedOne, it wasn't exactly a low cost airline. I flew for that company and if you bought a ticket on US Airways or United (legacy carriers) there's a good chance we would be doing the regional lift. My dad on the other hand flys for the original low cost carrier and makes in excess of $300k a year... This sort of treatment wasn't limited to one company either. Regional carriers provide a very large percentage of the domestic and even international lift in this country. When I was flying, none of them paid more than $21,000 a year for for an entry level position, and it often took in excess of 5 years to break $30,000. I happened to fly for a really bad one because I wanted a quick upgrade to hopefully get to a decent airline where I could possibly make what I'd consider a living wage for the profession.
That does seem like really low pay for a pilot. Based on the definition above, I call this underpaid, not underemployed.
I give the airline example because that's what I'm familiar with, but it's far from the only industry that eats its young. It's also one of the reasons that we had such a slow recovery following the economic downturn. Young people buying houses and consumer goods after college should be one of the main things driving the economy. Low pay means they're not. That's why underemployment should worry you.
Is this any different from the past? I graduated college and had a good job, but couldn't buy a house until about 5 years later, and that was with a great salary. If I had an average salary I would have had to wait longer. And that was with putting down 10% on my first house in a higher interest rate environment - which is different from the current 3-5% you can get away with now.
That's what I am saying, what makes the current environment so different from past recessionary environments?
As far as college degrees go, I have a history degree and I was an airline pilot. I'd probably be in the 6 figures right now if I hadn't left to be a stay at home dad 5 years ago. My dad has an English degree, he flew F-14s and has something like 40,000 hours on 737s, he'll retire in two years with more than a 5 million dollar nut. My wife was a psychology undergrad, she owns her own consulting firm and makes a 6 figure salary. I also have friends with technical degrees that deliver pizzas or work in soul crushing jobs where they pray for an occasional furlough, some also love the work.
I'm not a big fan of the college as a technical school thing. I really think the point of higher education is to create an intellectual electorate that has strong critical thinking and reasoning skills along with a broad understanding of many disciplines. I think a liberal arts education will serve you better in life in general than a technical education even if the technical education pays more initially. My history degree had very little to do with actually learning chronological events or even historical events. Instead, history beyond the 200 level was about taking an enormous amount of information and pairing it down into an argument backed up with facts and presented in a rigorous format. I would generally write 200-400 pages per class per semester. I also took classes in many other disciplines at the 200 and 300 level. I found classes like social psychology to be invaluable to understanding people's motivations on a daily basis.
I'm not on this thread to discuss the virtues of liberal arts vs. technical degrees. I'm just wondering what a liberal arts major thinks they "deserve" as far as a job vs. the reality in the job market. Because it's this discrepency that leads to the concept of underemployment based on not utilizing all of your skills. It's such a subjective determination to call yourself underemployed in this case.
And I don't know the piloting industry, but I would imagine the highest paid pilots are paid that for a reason. I know many of them have Air Force piloting backgrounds and such.
I liken it to someone playing baseball or basketball in college. Do they deserve to play in the major leagues just because of their play in college? Are they underemployed if they are in the minor leagues after college? There are only a limited amount of slots in the big leagues and they get paid more. I agree that the pay difference is excessive and ridiculous, but the concept is the same.
I have an MBA degree, but am neither the CEO of a company nor in upper management. Am I underemployed as well? Now, granted, I have no interest in these positions but I'm not so sure in the current market I could get those positions even if I wanted them.
Are some people "overemployed" because they never got a college degree, yet run businesses and make a lot of money? Examples like Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, etc.
I'd tell your niece to study what she enjoys, there's less chance of failure that way. You should also encourage her to do a lot of research now to find out what she can do with her degree beyond the obvious answers of teacher or grad school. There are plenty of people who have high positions with nothing more than a liberal arts degree in a non-related discipline. Seek these people out, look for campus talks, they're often very receptive to questioning. I remember I went to presentation from a hollywood agent and casting agent at my school in rural Ohio. It was fascinating and when I asked how I could do what he did, he gave me a systematic approach that would lead someone to his position.
That is great advice! I want her to have a realistic expectation of what to get out of her degree and not be so pessimistic of the job market. She is actually a great student so she should be able to do well in whatever she sets her heart to.