Work hard in school, go to college, and get a good job.
A career path once taken for granted isn’t how it’s working out these days for many young people in South Florida who find themselves in one of the toughest job markets in recent years.
Justin Chalkley, 24, who grew up in the South Florida area, dropped out of the University of Central Florida in the summer of 2022. He said he realized the financial burden of paying for school wasn’t worth it because of the dim job prospects.
“I saw no reason to go into generational debt for a piece of paper that may or may not get me to where I want to be in life,” he said.
For those who have stayed in school and graduated, many are struggling to find good-paying jobs in which they can put their degrees to use and are often forced to take lower-paying work just to make ends meet.
The national unemployment rate in August was 4.3 percent, but the rate for college graduates is much higher and has been rising. The unemployment rate for college grads, ages 20-24, was 9.3 percent in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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“Kids coming out of college and younger people, minorities, are having a hard time finding jobs,” Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said in September, adding that the “job-finding rate” is very low across the nation.
In Florida, the unemployment rate was below the national average, at 3.8 percent in August, while the rate in the Miami area was even lower, at 2.9 percent, according to FloridaCommerce. Specific data about the unemployment rate for recent college grads in Florida isn’t readily available.
For his part, Chalkley had entered college with dreams of becoming an engineer, then switched to criminal profiling before calling it quits. He stayed in the Orlando area because of the high cost of living in South Florida and has worked at a series of lower-paying jobs, including at Red Lobster as a server/bartender, a crew member at Bounce Orlando setting up bounce houses and waterslides, and currently as a server at Cody’s Ocala. After years of low-income positions, Chalkey is now onboarding as a licensed insurance agent at Northwestern Mutual, which he hopes will pave the way for him to refocus on financial advising.
“I feel I’ve grown stronger as a person having made a difficult decision and still being able to find a way to get a job and start a career despite the circumstances I find myself in and the lack of a degree,” said Chalkley.
Charlotte Hynes, 27, who graduated earlier this year from the University of South Florida, earned a bachelor's in geography and geographic information systems with hopes of working in wildlife rehabilitation.
“I had ideas since I was a kid to do [wildlife] rehab,” said Hynes.
Today, she works for an hourly wage as a supervisor at Pet Paradise in Davie, which provides boarding, vet care and dog training.
“It was tough to navigate getting a job in animal care because most places want extensive years of experience,” said Hynes, who was turned down for a couple of jobs she had applied for. “I’m a bit worried about making sure my career is what I imagined and moving forward the way I’ve wanted.”
Hynes believes she should be holding a job that provides a salary and benefits rather than hourly pay, and hasn’t given up hope of one day finding a position in wildlife rehabilitation.
Ruth Santana, a 23-year-old 2025 summer graduate from Florida International University, earned a bachelor’s in digital journalism. But, unable to find a job in the field, she works as a paraprofessional at Dr. Carlos J Finlay Elementary School in Miami for the Voluntary Pre-K (VPK) program.
Her inability to put her degree to use so far is weighing on Santana even though she describes her position at the school as a good job, and says she “doesn’t hate it.”
“I was a little depressed,” says Santana, who hasn’t heard back from either of the jobs in her field that she applied for. “Because I was unsure of how my life would play out. It felt like I was stepping out onto a ledge of just fog…and I had no idea what the f--- I was doing.”
She said she’s trying to stay optimistic about what the future holds, but notes the obstacles.
“We need experience, but we can't get that experience without previous experience,” she said.
Dr. Maria Ilcheva, associate director of the Jorge Perez Metropolitan Center at FIU, said that while some young people may be questioning the value of a bachelor’s degree it is still much better to have one than not when it comes to eventually finding a job.
“If college graduate unemployment rates are 5% or 6%...the unemployment rate of those with less than a bachelor’s degree — high school or associate degrees — are double that,” Dr. Ilcheva said.
The story was originally published by Caplin News, a publication of FIU's Lee Caplin School of Journalism & Media, as part of an editorial content partnership with the WLRN newsroom.
