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I took a pay cut from my previous job when I first graduated because my field is very hard to enter.

CC Italian wrote: The only people I know who made a liveable wage straight out of college with a Bachelors degree are a few with Business degrees, those lucky enough to find a teaching job and of course all the guys with engineering degrees. They all make a ton of money for young adults! All the engineers I know make between $75,000-$150,000 and not one of them is over 32 years old. Everybody else is a waiter or doing construction because it pays better then working a retail job. Sad but true.

uh, no.
Niece, brilliant, UCSD degree in marine biology, career path started at $8.45 per hour washing specimen bottles at the Scripps Institute, loves her job,continuing education, will be Director someday.
Nephew, regular guy, TEK, didn't complete degree at UC, learned to brew in 'house basement, owns 3 brew pubs, loves his job.
Son, brilliant, understands math like Will Hunting, fell in love, gave up scholarship at Univ. of Chicago to be an Aggie, breezed through C.E. school, lost track of girlfriend, now doing post-doc work for Dept. of Energy, loves the math, the job not so much.
Daughter, brilliant, UT senior, loves languages, idiomatic(verbal and written) in 2 "Critical Languages" DoD, DoS, etc. bidding for her services, I think last bid was GS13 by State, wants to teach ESL(of course she speaks Spanish too) for new immigrants at less than half the salary States offered.
Fine Arts degrees, y'know Medival French Poetry, Modern Fashion, Design, Women's Studies, Drama, Dance...they will never pay.
They weren't designed to.
I can remember that during the draft it seemed as though every other male student on campus was a philosophy major with a wife that was supporting them and a baby on the way. The only real value to the degree was draft deferment. They all went on to grad school and started teaching Fine Arts and cavorting with co-eds..

The ones who are lucky love their jobs and make good money. But like I said most of the guys I know who are my age early 30s have struggled very hard in the beginning and not half of them where liberal arts majors. I was just making a point that unless you are in a lucrative field things are still not good. I know two RNs who went over 6 months before they found jobs. WHY? Because many jobs they applied for required 2-3 years experience. They both found jobs eventually but it was not as easy as people think. I see that your family is on the right track but my point is that many of these college grads need to understand what their degrees will really do for them. It's not just liberal arts majors who have a hard time getting a job.

I understand the angst and frustration expressed by everyone in this thread. One small point to add... the job frustration felt by Generation X and Y is based in the cultural mindset that they are "entitled" to success.

It's a hard lesson to learn, but everyone needs the experience of choosing between buying food or fuel to look for work. True independence comes from realizing no one is going to bail you out.

I was blessed when I was laid off at 25. It changed my life and made me a responsible citizen.
My two cents,
Nick