PenPenWrites

A major concern for most of us whose children graduated from college recently is whether they'll get a job. It's a nasty market out there. Sometimes we blame our kids for not trying hard enough –it may seem like they're doing nothing but they probably are checking those job-search Web sites regularly.

Here's a point to remember when they finally to do find employment: The pay may be puny–way below what a college grad has been led to expect. A recent study found that, after adjusting for inflation, entry-level wages for students who graduated from college in 2010 was lower than a decade earlier. Heidi Shierholz, a labor market economist at the Economic Policy Institute, found that after gains in the 1980s and 1990s, entry-level hourly wages for college-educated men (without advanced degrees) were down 4.5 percent from 2000. For college-educated women, they were down 5.2 percent from 10 years earlier.

If that isn't discouraging enough, her study concludes on an even more pessimistic note: “With unemployment expected to remain above 8 percent well into 2014, it will likely be many years before young college graduates — or any workers — see substantial wage growth.”

Makes it tough for a college grad to pay off those college loans–they are kind of underwater, just like some homeowners–or for the parents to feel the college bill they paid will pay for itself in no time. It may be quite some time.