The American economy has created more than 11 million jobs in the last six years, and more than 70% of them went to people with at least a bachelor's degree.
Jake Baird, a packaging student at Michigan State University is getting ready to start applying for jobs. He says that his experiences are to set himself up for a job post-graduation.
"We all have high GPA's, we're all part of the clubs and whatnot, it takes a lot to really differentiate yourself."
It's important for students and graduates to differentiate themselves, because now there's an expectation to have a college diploma.
"Employers tell us that it's important," says Bill Morgan of MSU's career services office. "Certainly all the research that's out there will reinforce that the value of a bachelors degree over a lifetime of earnings can be double that of someone that does not have a bachelors degree or college experience."
A report from Georgetown University shows college graduates are even more likely to get jobs paying $52,000/year or more, what they deem as a "good job" in the report, than someone with no degree.
It also shows someone with a degree has a better chance of getting a full-time job in their chosen field rather than having to work part-time or in a different field.
"For students who are majoring in something that the title of the major equals the job title, then they typically go straight into that," says Morgan.
That means someone studying accounting will likely go into an accounting firm straight out of college. But just because the name of your program doesn't mean there are no jobs, but only that there's a wider variety of options for those students and graduates.
Because of this, businesses are hiring graduates extremely quickly.
"We had a saying 'they're recruiting like it's 1999.' I mean it's just been a couple of great years certainly for college students coming out," says Morgan.
Which has led to college grads becoming the largest portion of the workforce for the first time in US history.
