Debt and No Job Prospects: The Onion Satirizes the College Grad Experience

Leave it to the Onion to expertly satirize the modern college graduate experience: boatloads of debt and no solid job prospects. In this “Special Update” we meet 27-year-old Mark Felder, a 2007 University of Miami alumnus with a bachelor’s degree in communications and a “strong affection for the academic institution that left him totally unprepared for the job market and floundering in $50,000 in debt.”

The above report—and the accompanying article—detail how, despite his dire situation, Felder has no regrets about his college experience and has fond memories of the school’s bars, sports, campus, hot girls, and it’s proximity to the beach. And, “when confronted with any criticism of his alma mater, sources confirmed that Felder becomes vocally defensive of the institution that woefully underprepared him for not only the workforce, but also any form of graduate-level education.”

Felder’s not even daunted by monthly student loan payments that “barely cover the accrual of interest and are unlikely to erase his debt for at least another 20 years, making it increasingly improbable that he will ever own a home or retire at a reasonable age. “Honestly, I’d take the U over any school in the country, and I’d recommend it to anybody. Everyone who goes there loves it,” he says.

Felder, like many recent grads, has moved back home with mom and dad. But he—and we— shouldn’t give up hope about the worth of that degree. Just-released federal data reveals that college grads are still better off economically than folks with just a high school diploma