It’s graduation season

‘Tis graduation season around the world, the time new graduates are handed blank paper scrolls on a stage for on-stage photo-ops and graduate caps are tossed in the air

But this year was special for me – after putting in 18 years of effort, starting in pre-school, attending multiple schools to get into her university of choice, followed by four challenging years, this spring was my daughter’s time to graduate from Canada’s preeminent university. The scale of the graduations was something we are not used to here (17,000 this spring alone), staggered over almost three weeks and multiple times each day.

The graduation ceremony itself was well-planned and conducted, all without requiring students to go through rehearsals, as is the case in some universities in Pakistan. Yet, it gave every student a memorable moment on stage. I loved the adherence to tradition, the induction of students into the graduating class (conducted in Latin). Students being at the centre of the ceremony (not any tangentially relevant VIP), and the fact that the event was conducted on schedule were two things that stood out. The trend among almost all graduates, women as well as men, to hold teddy bears and flower bouquets for their photos after the graduation ceremony was new to me (generational thing?). But what was most unexpected for me was the absence of coffee at the otherwise sumptuous reception, which I thought unthinkable considering that the smell of coffee and donuts defines North America.

The speeches by the commencement speaker and university officials adhered to traditional themes of celebration of achievement, a reiteration of being members of the alumni community, gratitude to families and communities that supported graduates in their journey, and, looking ahead, life advice. Another departure, I was expecting a student to speak on behalf of the graduates, but that does not appear to be part of the university’s traditional graduation ceremony format. There was also something that was slipped in by, not just one, but two speakers that I do not recall hearing at any graduation: two acknowledgments of the high cost of a university education, one serious and the other light-hearted.

The cost of a college education in many developed countries has long been the elephant in the room. Going back a few decades, it was possible for domestic students to work full-time in the summer and part-time the rest of the year to make enough money to cover their cost of attendance – cost of tuition and cost of living. As tuition costs rose, that possibility slipped away, and more domestic students became reliant on student loans.

Today, the total cost of attendance of a four-year programme for domestic students, even at public universities, can easily touch CAD/USD 200,000. For international students attending public universities and all students at private universities (that do not distinguish based on students’ residence status), it is usually a multiple of that, in the CAD/USD 400,000 to 500,000 range. For reference, these days, that is roughly half the price of a detached family home in a nice suburb of a major metropolitan area in North America.

The ballooning cost of a bachelor’s degree has complicated the answer to the question: ‘What is the purpose of a university education?’ Once upon a time, intellectual development, personal growth, maturity, civic engagement and cultural enrichment would all have been perfectly acceptable answers back when it cost students four years of their time and a modest tuition fee. Professional and vocational preparation would be a reasonable additional expectation for professional degree programmes.

However, nowadays, the high cost of attendance compels students to evaluate their investment in terms of time and money into a college education in terms of return-on-investment – prioritising securing gainful employment and ‘making back’ the money they spent. So, while some may have found the mention of the cost of education undignified, I found it refreshingly honest.

For students graduating at this time, the situation is further complicated. While headline numbers for the unemployment rate in the region paint a positive picture, a closer look shows that youth unemployment rates have ticked up. In the US, while the overall unemployment rate is at a relatively healthy 4.2 per cent, the unemployment rate among 22 to 27-year-olds (the age range that captures new graduates) is at 6.2 per cent.

The situation is even more alarming in Canada. The country’s youth unemployment (post-secondary non-students in the 15-to-24-year range) has reached 11.2 per cent, against an overall unemployment rate of 7.0 per cent. The situation is very similar in most countries across the world.

Many employers are not making any moves at the moment and are in a wait-and-see mode. When employers freeze hiring, historically, entry-level recruitment gets hit hardest. There are a number of reasons that may be to blame for that. The Great Recession of 2007-2009 was around 16 years ago. For the last year or more, the market has been anticipating another recession, possibly due to a failure of the US Federal Reserve to perfectly time its ‘soft-landing’ by gradual rate cuts, something that comes up as a hot topic of debate on business channels at some point during the day.

The other factor that has been fuelling uncertainty in the business environment worldwide that came into play more recently is US President Trump’s trade war by tariffs that he declared against virtually all countries of the world simultaneously on April 2 of this year (Liberation Day!). Going by the reporting on the issue, this wrangling has been going on for so long that consumer confidence is also going down in addition to business confidence.

I would be remiss to not mention the early effects of AI tools. Early reports indicate that white collar jobs, especially in the tech sector, are particularly hard hit. Microsoft’s CEO reportedly said a few weeks ago that around 30 per cent of the code written at Microsoft is now generated by AI tools, soon followed by an announcement of layoffs of 6,500 workers. So far, layoffs this year have reached 22,000. This is coming on the heels of 150,000 layoffs in 2024.

What, then, are new graduates to do? Historically, students graduating with a bachelor's degree in a bad job market tend to continue to grad school, in the hope that by the time they finish, the job market will have improved. Others find employment in positions they are overqualified for as a means of parking themselves in the job market until something better or more relevant comes along. For a growing number of new graduates, this will mean they will experience a delayed start to their adult, independent lives and will require their parents to support them for longer than they may have planned and anticipated.

This year's graduation season, while a moment of immense pride and celebration, also serves as a poignant reminder of the evolving landscape that new graduates must navigate. The rising cost of education, coupled with a challenging job market exacerbated by global economic uncertainties (some cyclical, others avoidable and man-made) and the rapid adoption and integration of AI, presents a formidable hurdle.

The writer (she/her) has a PhD in Education.