I graduated college with a degree in Cultural Anthropology. I started working in kitchens while I was going to college. Five years later, the only job I've held that wasn't a kitchen job was working for barter at a local laundromat. That's right, I didn't actually get paid.

When I moved back to the city I live in now after moving back home to the mountains for two years, I spent LITERALLY a year and some change before I even got an INTERVIEW. And that's putting in applications at restaurants, movie theaters, bookstores, video stores.

I have a resume now, thank God, and I need to start sending it out, because I need a job. At present, I'm helping a friend of mine build a web-based game.

There's a third option: trade school. Going to community college to learn how to be an electrician or a plumber or a carpenter (despite the fact that millions of homes are currently sitting losing value with no one who can afford to buy or rent them) or going into nursing or law enforcement ( we will never run out of sick people or people to throw in jail) are actually more economically viable than getting a four year degree.

College Enrollment Rate at Record High - NYTimes.com

This shows the upward trend in college enrollment

HigherEdInfo.org: Graduation Rates

These graphs go back as far as 1997, so it's not QUITE as useful as the other one might be, but it's a reasonable indicator of the rate of graduation, which in the country is like 55% as of 08. The percentages might go down just because of the sheer volume of people being pushed into college right now.

The markets are saturated, and our economy is in recession. which means not only are you graduating college along with more people than have graduated college historically in our country, but you're also competing for jobs with people who have 15 years work experience somewhere else but they got laid off.