Rare News Desk
NATIONAL HARBOR, Maryland — Across the great halls of the Gaylord National Hotel and Convention Center, students roamed, listening to speakers and organizations pitch them on the benefits of conservatism.
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CPAC 2014 sported a huge contingent of young people devoted to the Liberty movement. Whether parading around the grand ballroom in “Stand with Rand” tee shirts, or wearing Students for Liberty stickers, the youths were easy to spot at the three-day convention.
Many of them envision a life in politics or the media. Whether they want to go into journalism, advocacy or more productive lines of work, their prospects are not great.
Once the students graduate, they’ll have to start paying off those non-bankruptable college loans. For that they’ll need jobs, which are not exactly thick on the ground these days, especially for new workers.
Lisa Car, a junior at Clemson University believes that there are jobs out there. It just takes a strong personality to go out and find them.
“I’m personally not too worried about it, I have a very entrepreneurial spirit. I’m not concerned. People from Clemson University in my department have a high graduation job rate,” Car said.
While Car’s Graphic Communications degree could land her employment, her peers don’t always have as specific of a focus and have a hard time landing work, post-graduation.
“I’m concerned for my friends,” Car said. “Something that I, and a lot of my friends have done, is taking on as many internships as possible. Getting work experience while in school, and having that on your resume is a great way to promote yourself.”
Yet a growing number of college grads are removing themselves from the workforce. Last month, over a quarter-million college students lost jobs, following an uptick in hiring in January.
According to the Millennial Jobs Report, the “effective unemployment rate” sits at a staggering 15.8 percent among American workers aged 18 to 29. This statistic counts the millions of youth that have removed themselves from the workforce as unemployed, which seems accurate enough.
Not everyone has as bright an outlook as Lisa Car. Christopher, a sophomore at the University of Scranton has seen the struggles of his older brother.
“My brother is three years older than me and he has had a lot of trouble finding a job. It’s made me think of my job prospects. I think if the conservative movement gets into power, jobs will start opening up,” Christopher said.
Like Lisa, Christopher is also deep in the internship hunt. He too is concerned for his more apathetic classmates — who he refers to simply as “liberal-arts students.”
Ultimately, these liberty-minded young people have an idea just how tough the job market is on new entrants. They have heard the post-graduation horror stories, and are looking to avoid that by finding any advantage the can grab hold of, including possibly something they find at CPAC.
“There will always be people who don’t know what they want to do, and that worries me. Some of my friends have had to move back home after graduation after not finding a job. I don’t want to be forced to participate in that trend,” Car said.
