A college-educated millennial has complained that his degree is ‘worthless’ after being unable to find work for three years.
Dan Colflesh quit his job in the customer-service industry aged 34 to pursue a degree in the hopes of bettering his employment prospects.
‘I worked my way up in a few companies, but I always hit a roadblock in promotions because I didn’t have a college education,’ Colflesh told Business Insider.
However, the now-43-year-old has declared his degree ‘worthless’ after spending years following graduation struggling to land a job and saddled with student debt.
In 2021 Colflesh graduated with an associate physics degree from community college and a bachelor’s in political science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
His story comes amid speculation the college degree is losing its value as Walmart, Accenture and IBM all axed degree requirements on their corporate job descriptions.
Dan Colflesh quit his job in the customer-service industry aged 34 to pursue a college degree
The graduate said his experience with the job market has left him feeling ‘defeated’
‘No one will hire me. My bachelor’s degree is pretty much worthless’ he lamented to the publication.
Colflesh explained that he has been looking for work in the three years since graduating without any luck. He has unsuccessfully applied to more than 100 jobs.
The graduate told Insider he is still seeking a job and that at times the process has left him feeling ‘defeated.’
‘Once you could have a bachelor’s degree in just about anything and get some kind of good-paying job,’ he said.
‘Now you have to have an insane amount of experience.’
‘I keep hearing employers talk about no one wanting to work, and I desperately want to work, and I can’t get someone to ever sit down and talk to me,’ he added.
The unemployment rate for American men is low compared to previous decades
Colflesh said that he feels he faces additional challenges because he is autistic.
‘I’m always going to seem off to most non-autistics,’ he explained.
‘The general lack of acceptance of autistic people makes social networking challenging, and that impacts job opportunities.’
However, he remains determined to find work.
‘I’ll keep looking no matter how bleak it gets, because I have to’ he said.
The unemployment rate for American men is low compared to previous decades.
However, it has dropped considerably since 1950 when around 97 percent of men between 25 and 54 were in the workforce compared to just 89 percent with jobs now.
