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New here? Employee Evolution is a blog written by Ryan Healy. Ryan is a Co-Founder of Brazen Careerist, the webs #1 social network for young professionals. Ryan speaks with organizations on best practices for recruiting and retaining Generation Y and how to effectively use social media to reach your target market. To contact Ryan, please visit our contact page.
According to Monster.com, 60 percent of college graduates move home with mom and dad after graduation and the trend is on the rise. The statistic holds true with my friends from the class of 2006. More than half moved back to the suburbs to start adult life, much the same way they ended high school life — with their parents. A lot of people say generation Y needs to grow up and take some personal responsibility and that we have been coddled by our helicopter parents (see the comments section).
But when you look closely, it is glaringly apparent that moving back in with parents is one of the the most responsible things a new college grad can do. By sucking it up at home for a year or two, young people give themselves the opportunity to take control of their career, take control of their finances and transition from the care-free college fantasy world to the real-world of work, marriage, kids, mortgages and car payments.
Take control of your career
To live comfortably in a big city like New York, students are forced to take a high paying, but less than satisfying job. Often, top graduates end up working for the best paying investment bank or law firm. I’m sure you could find a small minority of conservative students who had dreams of becoming an I-banker since middle school, but for the most part these jobs are going to the top tier students who are trying to make a quick buck before they retire at 30 (or so they say).
By moving home after graduation, you have little or no rent which allows for more freedom when searching for a job. There is no need to sell out to an investment bank if your real goal is to work with underprivileged children. Depending on where your parents are located, you are probably missing out on the big city night life and social scene, but you have lots of opportunities to find the perfect job, regardless of pay. If ditching the social scene for career sake doesn’t demonstrate responsibility and independence, I don’t know what does.
Take control of your finances
Real wages today are lower than they were for the past two generations of workers. Couple that fact with today’s insane housing costs and an increase in contract workers not receiving benefits, just getting by on forty or fifty thousand a year in a major city is nearly impossible. Attempting to save any reasonable amount of money the first few years is a joke.
However, moving home with mom and dad will immediately save you about $700 a month in housing costs. At least there is some extra cash flow. In two years, you can save up enough to move out on your own without worrying about going into credit card debt for basic necessities like fixing your car or buying groceries.
Take an appropriate adjustment period between college and the real world
People really do struggle adjusting from college to the real world. A good friend of mine just fulfilled her life long dream of moving to New York. She still loves the city, but she is overwhelmed and doesn’t exactly like her day job. Sure, many people go through this tough transition period, and chances are she will eventually enjoy it, but the transition from child to adult is different, and oftentimes, more difficult for today’s youth.
“This period is not a transition, but an actual life stage, according to Jeffrey Arnett, associate professor at University of Missouri and author of Emerging Adulthood: A Theory of Development from the Late Teens through Early Twenties. Arnett describes the period between college and adulthood as, “a self- focused stage where people have the freedom to focus on their own development.” Notice he calls this period of stage in development and not just a transition between two stages.
So why do we still try to go from adolescent to adult in a matter of weeks or months?
Moving home for a while enables an appropriate and productive transition. Rather than focus on rent, bills and kids, emerging adults living at home with their parents have the ability to focus on the most important aspects of emerging adult life: figuring out who they are and what career is right for them
Cross-posted at The Brazen Careerist
Though there is nothing wrong with living at home with your parents (several of my friends have chosen to do that) I just don’t see the “savings”. Sure, not paying rent is a huge cost savings but what about all the other costs for commuters? For example, many city folks typically don’t have cars. Having a car is essential for those living at home. What about all those costs? Gas, insurance, maintenance. And aren’t we forgetting about all those late nights at the office that many of us are accustomed to in the first year. Who wants to live your life based on the train schedule and get home at 9pm if not later every night? I enjoy my job but I don’t feel like I should be married to it. What kind of life can you have for yourself if your free time is the 2 hrs you have before you go to sleep? We’ll have plenty of years to be in debt and be responsible when we start our own families. For me, the opportunity cost clearly outweighs my decision.
I would say that this column makes sense…. if you are working in New York City.
But most jobs are in the ‘edge’ cities now. They are the in those industrial areas and office parks around the edges of metropolitan areas where land is cheaper and more space is available.
If you are living and working in these areas (and most people are) then it should not be difficult to find an inexpensive apartment, save money, and focus on a career.
@Gina - All valid points. Commuting can be a big issue and it’s definitely a pain in the butt. I guess it’s all about what is most important to you. I chose to live in a city like you did, but I still think the responsible thing to do would have been to go home and save some money. That doesn’t mean its the most exciting thing to do.
@Scott - Good point, if you can live in a cheap city, go for it. It’s another great option. However, I live in D.C. and it is definitely not much cheaper than New York.
I currently live at home and enjoy saving the money. It is allowing me to save up for a nice down payment on my first house, which will lower my monthly payments. Why not take time to get things in order before getting my own place? While I’m excited to buy a home, I don’t need one immediately.
For someone who takes a lot of grief for living at home right now, I really appreciate this perspective.
I lived at home for two months. The stress of being caught between my teenage siblings & my parents, combined with commuting made for an interesting time. But I am very glad to be back living on my own. I hope it stays that way, but I know if I had to, one of the first expenses I would consider cutting would be rent.
Okay honestly, I’m not here to judge anybody, and I can certainly see why living at home for a brief time after college might help a person get their post-grad finances together — especially, as noted by others, for people who are planning to work in a major city where they may need to physically save up before moving out. I can also see that it would be irresponsible for someone to jump desperately into some low-paying job, which may mean that they have to eat poorly and live in unsafe conditions (while foregoing costly health insurance), risking their health and eventually costing all of us when they end up in the emergency room.
But something about this trend rubs me the wrong way. I suppose it’s this idea of the “appropriate adjustment period,” which strikes me as the same kind of child-centric psychological mumbo-jumbo that gave us helicopter parenting and nonsense like “children’s self esteem must be elevated at all costs.” You want to live on your parents’ dime for another year or two, “figuring out” who you are and what career is right for you? Then what exactly were four (plus) years of college for?
A few months or a year at your parents’ house while you search for the right employment opportunity seems fair and responsible, but the soul searching claptrap smacks of laziness and selfishness.
This article, while somewhat helpful, completely ignores the demographic of recent grads who did not grow up in a suburbs. What are the nuances for those who grew up in the cities, where space at their parents’ apartments is not, necessarily, as ample?
Do we have a cultural bias towards students and recent grads who are from the suburbs? We have heard of such biases in standardized testing. Do they pervade the workplace?
This is the way things should be, get off what we are on now