There Are 5,000 Janitors in the U.S. with PhDs

There are 18,000 parking lot attendants in the U.S. with college degrees. There are 5,000 janitors in the U.S. with PhDs. In all, some 17 million college-educated Americans have jobs that don't require their level of education. Why?


The data comes from a the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and can be seen here in handy, depressing chart form:

At the Chronicle, where the above chart was posted, Richard Vedder argues that maybe we place too much importance on higher education, citing a new study by the National Bureau of Economic Research:
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