Caught in the cycle of Friday morning recitations, New York City nightlife and long Bobst study sessions, it’s easy to forget that NYU is a revered name. Currently sitting at No. 30 on the U.S. News & World Report’s national university rankings, the university is one of the nation’s top post-secondary institutions. Scores of business leaders, musicians, politicians and actors — think Anne Hathaway, Maggie Rogers and Amal Clooney — are prized success stories, in addition to NYU’s consistent batch of Forbes’ “30 Under 30” winners every year.
The university’s breadth of alumni accomplishments, from excelling in STEM research to the performing arts, is a point of pride. However, these achievements also create a culture of competition, high achievement and sometimes, the illusion of immediate post-grad success.
“I think there’s a weight to it,” said CAS alum Kevin Ferro, who graduated from NYU last May. “Sometimes, people can fall into the mentality that if they don’t make something big of themselves, then it wasn’t worth going to NYU.”
Data from NYU’s annual Life Beyond the Square survey shows that 80% of graduates from the classes of 2021, 2022 and 2023 found work within six months of graduation. The survey is offered to all graduating students in associate’s, bachelor’s and graduate programs — but given its optionality, may not precisely reflect the entire student body. Post-grad experiences are actually more mixed than the data lets on.
“NYU doesn’t prepare you in the sense of having meetings about what your career path might be,” Ferro, who majored in history with a minor in film studies — and has been on the job hunt since commencement day — said. “Coming out of high school, I expected to make more out of NYU. But coming in as a liberal arts major, I didn’t expect to make a lot of money.”
Even for Violet alumni, the notion of NYU as a golden ticket to success remains questionable. Many recent graduates like Ferro find themselves struggling to secure employment, even though the institution’s prestige helps bolster the process.
“I have friends from schools with less name recognition that won’t even get interviews,” said Salma Shamel, a Steinhardt doctoral student who also teaches a Media, Culture and Communication seminar. “NYU definitely does give you a leg up, but it’s still not enough. The hiring market is so disproportionate.”
This growing uneasiness among recent college graduates is no phantom pain. The national unemployment rate was about 4.1% in February, which The New York Times described as “just above record lows.” More applicants are competing for fewer openings, and many feel the hiring process is sluggish at best.
“I don’t know if the expectation of immediate success out of college is reasonable, because the entire structure of the market for academia is not reasonable,” Shamel said. “Even as a Ph.D. student, the market is really terrible. It’s still numerically close to impossible that your application is picked up on mere merit.”
This raises the larger question about the worth of a college degree as tuition rates skyrocket and 25% of Americans under 40 have student loans. For students at NYU in particular — where tuition without scholarship totals to more than $93,000 per year — the tensions between cost, collegiate benefits and eventual success are especially pressing.
“I think overall, the price of college is trending upward in the U.S. far more than it needs to be,” said CAS alum Jackson Reinhart, another graduate of NYU’s class of 2024. “Maybe the question for a lot of people is if college is worth it at all. But if you’re gonna be paying around the same for a school of that caliber anyway, then NYU is for sure a worthwhile investment. You’ll be hard pressed to find another top-30 institution that doesn’t cost the same.”
Naturally, no two post-grad stories are the same, as Reinhart is already using the potential of his computer science degree as a software engineer for Amazon Web Services.
“There’s definitely something to be said for going to a school like this and being surrounded by successful and smart and hardworking people,” Reinhart said. “That inspires a person to do more than maybe they would have otherwise.”
NYU can offer opportunities, but the legacies of former-students-turned-celebrities are just one part of the university’s larger history. Now more than ever, it’s evident that there is no magic formula for post-graduate success.
“Most of those [famous] people didn’t make it immediately after graduating either,” Ferro said. “It’s not a race. Some people are gonna get there before you, and that’s okay.”
Contact Greg Cutler at [email protected].