With fall semester over halfway through, UP seniors are in the midst of making post-graduation plans. However, come May, many might be returning home. According to a 2011 study by Pew Research Center, 45 percent of all college graduates aged 18 to 24 live with family.
These numbers have been increasing in recent years. The data for 2001 listed 31 percent of grads living with family, which marks a 45 percent increase in the span of 10 years, according to the Pew study.
Financial reasons caused by student debt may be one factor motivating students to return to rent-free living at home. The average debt for 2011 UP graduates was $26,957, according to the Project on Student Debt.
Math major Grayson Penfield is one senior headed home to Forest Grove, Ore. after graduation. Unlike his parents at his age, he feels a need to save up before moving out on his own.
“(Back then) you could make it on a minimum wage job and you didn’t need a lot of income to be okay,” Penfield said. “Now you have to really, really make sure you’re airtight on your finances. That makes people want to go home more recently.”
Lindsey Irish, a UP grad this past year, had to move home to Missoula, Mon. for four months over the summer.
“I moved because I was broke, and my lease (in Portland) ran out,” she said. “I spent four months applying to jobs like crazy.”
After quitting a temp. job last August because it was too miserable, she found a job one week later back in Portland.
“I packed all my things up and I moved to Portland,” she said.
Her current job, as a Web Event Specialist for InterCall, pays the bills so she can continue living on her own.
Penfield plans to move out from living with family as soon as he can.
“Until I have a reliable source of income, I’ve got to stay home,” he said. “I feel very confident that I won’t be home for long. It’s is a safe place to kick off the rest of my life.”
Senior Kay Bodmer, an environmental science major, also plans to live with family after doing service work abroad. While at home, she will have time to decide what type of career she wants to pursue.
“I think for me, moving home is most likely going to happen because I’m not going to know what I want to do, so (I’ll) save money and live at home,” she said.
Penfield recommends that students consult professors and take advantage of Career Services to explore options for life after graduation. It wasn’t until talking with a professor that Penfield realized attending graduate school might not be for him.
“I was initially thinking, go straight to grad school. I was thinking I really like school a lot. I like math. I like to learn,” he said. “But I talked to some of my professors about it, and my perception of grad school wasn’t, like, quite right. It’s really, really a different level of difficulty. So I don’t know if I’m ready to jump into that immediately after four years of college.”
Not having a job lined up seems to be a common denominator among some students who choose to live with family after graduation.
“The biggest hurdle for students, I find, is the pressure they sometimes experience. Feeling ‘I have this new degree. I need to get this job on my own, and I’m going to apply for jobs online,’” Max Kalchthaler, assistant director of Career Services, said. “It’s a terribly inefficient way to look for a job and it’s rarely successful. It’s estimated that between five to eight percent of job seekers find their opportunities online.”
According to Kalchthaler, the average job search takes six to nine months, and the best way to find that job is through networking.
“Know that most people – it’s estimated that up to 75 percent of people – find jobs through networking, and that’s across fields,” he said.
For Penfield, the fears are beginning to kick in.
“I’ve seen a lot of people, and they also go home with (my) same thoughts (of moving out soon),” he said. “I worked at a Domino’s Pizza in my hometown this summer, (but) my nightmare is I go home and end up staying there for a few years.”
Senior Mairi Rodriguez also hopes to limit the time she lives with her parents in the Tri-Cities, Wash.
“I do want to get my own apartment, and just sort of have my own space, so that when (my fiancé and I) get married we have space,” she said. “But I’ll have to go home and save a little bit before.”
It makes sense to Rodriguez to be close to family as she plans her upcoming wedding.
“Our wedding is going to be (in the Tri-Cities), so it was practical,” she said. “It’s cheaper and there’s more job opportunities for me.”
Rodriguez will search for graduate schools after getting married, and looks forward to having the support of her family.
“That way (I’m) not thrown out into the real world and kind of floundering,” she said.
Her parents, like Penfield’s, look forward to her homecoming. After she posed the question, they responded with, “Oh we were expecting that!”
Bodmer’s family is also excited for her to move back in with them.
“(My parents) are fine with it, at least for a while – not for the rest of my life!” Bodmer said.
Though excited to get a dog in her new apartment, Irish does miss being a student.
“I miss being an English major, actually,” she said. “I learned how to communicate really well and I know my way around a computer. It really helps to be tech savvy.”
Skills developed at UP helped Irish in her job search.
“No one wants to hold your hand out of college,” she said. “No one cares.”
Irish encourages students to push outside their comfort zones now, so that they can leave the nest after graduation.
Senior Grayson Penfield, as a freshman, with his soon to be housemates once more: mom Elena and younger brother Dashiel.
Senior Kay Bodmer as a camp counselor - the only job’s she ever had and the one she says she’ll go back to if all other plans fall through.
