My entire life, I’ve been told that if I worked hard enough, I could someday have a career that would allow me the freedom to be utterly self-sustaining. I believed in the American dream, in the promise of a lifetime of relishing in the fruits of my labor and in education. When I entered high school, I began spreading myself thin. As I saw it, this was me working to give myself the security of a good education and a high wage.
Yet, semester after semester, I find myself veering farther from this perception of imminent success. The job market is squeezing, the cost of shelter and food continue to rise and young, newly graduated Americans are now over two times more likely to be unemployed compared to previous generations. While it can be easy to chalk this change up to natural cycles of economic recession and slower hiring, the growth of the artificial intelligence industry and the enactment of harmful government policies by the Trump administration cannot and should not be ignored.
Perhaps where AI poses the most threat is in practically eliminating entry-level labor, particularly in data-rich industries, like software development and financial services. This may be why over a quarter of computer science graduates are now describing themselves as “very pessimistic” towards the job market, according to a recent survey from Handshake.
Additionally, the ethically questionable methods used to train AI have made it such that AI is almost too good at mimicking human thought-patterns and writing styles, putting even those outside of the data-driven world of business and software under threat, too.
But certainly, AI isn’t the only driver of a tough job market. The policies of the Trump administration have also led to job cuts and slower hiring, and these could continue into the foreseeable future. Notably, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has cut nearly 60,000 jobs from the federal government and initiated a federal hiring freeze until Oct. 15, 2025, with the possibility of renewal. This freeze harmfully limits both the creation of new federal jobs and the replacement of employees who have left or retired from existing positions. And ultimately, those hurt the worst by these federal choices are the ones who have not yet had the chance to gain experiences that would give them a leg up in a competitive market.
Even outside of the federal government directly, intimidating legislation by DOGE and the grant cuts by the federal government are making it harder for people to get jobs in other sectors as well. Universities face hiring freezes as higher education is put under the microscope, research has been defunded and people everywhere are at risk of losing jobs in retail and construction due to tariff-related increases in the cost of imported commodities.
These cuts have created an environment of stress for college students and recent graduates. The fear of unemployment is palpable on Fordham’s campus, and one only needs to go so far as any Fordham Career Fair to find students as young as 18 exhaustedly networking with employers, perhaps fearful that any lost opportunity to do so could cost them four years down the line. The race to acquire internships, not for the sake of meaningful personal experience, but for the sake of mere resume-boosting, carries a similar air of anxiety. This competition and pressure is not fair. Students should be able to learn and grow while in college without feeling a need to prepare years in advance to — maybe — acquire an entry-level position. And as pressures continue to rise, we mustn’t hold blameless the factors which have led us here. Instead, recognizing them will be the first step in creating a more equitable job market.
Kate Stover, FCRH ‘28, is an economics and humanitarian studies double major from Columbia, South Carolina.
