The Myth of the Unemployed College Grad - The Atlantic | It Sure Looks Like Phones Are Making Students Dumber - The Atlantic | The Great Cousin Decline - The Atlantic | Xi Jinping Is Fighting a Culture War at Home

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The Myth of the Unemployed College Grad - The Atlantic

A bachelor’s degree continues to be a great investment. Why do the media keep suggesting otherwise?

Perhaps no puzzle has consumed the American media more in the past few months than the chasm between official measures of the economy and how average people feel about it. Inflation is down, and wages are up—yet voters remain gloomy. Young people are, at least by some measures, the most pessimistic. They think the economy is bad and getting worse. Why? The answer has major implications, not least on the outcome of the next presidential election. You can’t blame the media for being so eager to figure it out. But pundits and reporters might want to look harder at their own penchant for writing stories that make the economy look worse for young people than it really is, including, above all, by incorrectly declaring that college diplomas aren’t what they used to be.

A recent Washington Post story, “New College Grads Are More Likely to Be Unemployed in Today’s Job Market,” typifies the trend. It begins with a recent graduate named Lucas Chung forlornly sitting in his childhood bedroom. He has moved back home, because he hasn’t yet found a good job. “I had high hopes but it’s not really working out for me,” Chung says. “I’m feeling a little desperate.” Chung is supposed to represent what the Post calls “a sharp reversal from long-held norms” in which college graduates get a boost in the job market. Historically, the unemployment rate for new college graduates has been lower than the overall average. But in recent months, it has been higher, according to an analysis of September data by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. This, the Post story concludes, has created “another disruption for a generation of college graduates who have already had crucial years of schooling upended by the pandemic.”

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It Sure Looks Like Phones Are Making Students Dumber - The Atlantic

Test scores have been falling for years—even before the pandemic.

For the past few years, parents, researchers, and the news media have paid closer attention to the relationship between teenagers’ phone use and their mental health. Researchers such as Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge have shown that various measures of student well-being began a sharp decline around 2012 throughout the West, just as smartphones and social media emerged as the attentional centerpiece of teenage life. Some have even suggested that smartphone use is so corrosive, it’s systematically reducing student achievement. I hadn’t quite believed that last argument—until now.

The Program for International Student Assessment, conducted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in almost 80 countries every three years, tests 15-year-olds in math, reading, and science. It is the world’s most famous measure of student ability. Most years, when the test makes contact with American news media, it provides instant ammunition for critics of America’s school system, who point to PISA scores and ask something like “Why are we getting crushed by Finland in reading?” or “Why are we getting smoked by Korea in math?”

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The Great Cousin Decline - The Atlantic

Families are shrinking. But the weirdest family role is a vital one.

Produced by ElevenLabs and NOA, News Over Audio, using AI narration.

Perhaps you’ve heard: Americans are having fewer children, on average, than they used to, and that has some people concerned. In the future, the elderly could outnumber the young, leaving not enough workers to pay taxes and fill jobs. Kids already have fewer siblings to grow up with, and parents have fewer kids to care for them as they age.

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Xi Jinping Is Fighting a Culture War at Home - The Atlantic

The Chinese leader seeks to restore an earlier era of ideological indoctrination and national unity—whether his society wants it or not.

In October, a Communist Party–run television network in the province of Hunan aired a five-episode program called When Marx Met Confucius. In it, actors portraying the European revolutionary and the ancient Chinese sage pontificate on their doctrines and discover that their ideas are in perfect harmony. “I am longing for a supreme and far-reaching ideal world, where everyone can do their best and get what they need,” Marx says. “I call it a communist society.” “I also advocate the establishment of a society where everyone is happy and equal,” Confucius responds. “I call it the great unity of the world.” The program’s message is that modern Chinese culture should be a synthesis of Marxism and China’s traditions—a fusion achieved by another great philosopher, the Chinese leader Xi Jinping. “There has been endless debate about how traditional culture should be treated,” one scholar on the show explains. But finally, thanks to Xi’s wisdom, “the problem was truly solved, and people’s bound thoughts suddenly became clear.”

Read: The most dangerous conflict no one is talking about

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