“I feel like I’m at the edge of a cliff and everybody’s saying, ‘OK, Jump!’” said Joelle Calcavecchia, of Derry, about a week before graduating from the University of New Hampshire.

“You could fly or you could die,” said Sasa Tang, another senior. She’s from Durham, her parents met at UNH’s Dimond Library, and she hopes to eventually become a professor.

The two are among this month’s college graduates, who will face the challenges of finding a job during a recession and living on their own with a shortage of affordable housing, while already weighed down with some of the heaviest college debt in history. But many of them are still optimistic and uncompromising about putting their education to good use.

Tang said her best professors taught from first-hand experience and she plans to get some of her own in the Peace Corps, starting in September. She majored in political science and international affairs and is interested in human rights. “I’m ready to do some service,” she said.

Calcavecchia, also a political science major, said she had been adamant about getting a job right out of school, but decided to travel this summer instead. She wants to work for the State Department and is particularly interested in helping in the Middle East, but is worried about her safety, given current events.

She likes the peacefulness of her home state, but she learned during an internship in Washington, D.C., that there’s a lot more to see out in the world.

“I know I don’t have it figured out,” Calcavecchia said. But she also knows she will have to figure it out soon in order to start paying back her student loans.

New Hampshire ranks second in the nation for highest average student debt at $29,443, and about 72 percent of students have debt, which is fifth highest in the nation. Those numbers are based on a report by The Project on Student Debt on the class of 2009 in four-year institutions, an initiative of the Institute for College Access and Success.

Maine ranks in at a close third for highest debt at $29,143 with 65 percent of students carrying debt. The District of Columbia ranks highest in debt, while Utah ranks lowest.

The report estimates that college students across the nation graduated in 2009 with an average of $24,000 of debt. That’s a particularly challenging figure right now, as unemployment for young graduates rose to 8.7 percent in 2009, the highest rate on record.

New Hampshire makes the lowest tax contribution to higher education in the nation, according to the “Status of Higher Education in New Hampshire” report by the New Hampshire College and University Council. Therefore, state institutions don’t have as many resources to assist students other than by arranging loans. And proposed funding cuts to the University System of New Hampshire could make things even more difficult.

Pat Shannon majored in sociology and Spanish at UNH and isn’t quite sure what he’s going to do with his degree. For now, he has a sales job lined up near his hometown in the Boston area. He plans to live with his parents and save money for graduate school.

But Shannon is concerned he’ll end up in sales permanently and not return to school. He already has about $20,000 worth of student debt, he said.

He said he was making the most of his last week as an undergraduate.

“I don’t want to leave this lifestyle,” he said. “I don’t have much to worry about, except my grades, and all my friends are around.”

Amanda Markell, a business major with art minors, said she was applying for jobs “anywhere and everywhere,” but decided to take her third internship instead.

“I don’t just want to take a job. I’m starting my life,” said the Manchester resident.

She hopes the internship will help her figure out which aspect of marketing she wants to focus on. “But I’ll be very poor this summer,” she said. She’s likely to stay with her parents and commute to her internship this summer.

Jane Law, communications director at the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority, said New Hampshire weathered the recession relatively well and has regained a number of the jobs lost, which should be attractive for college graduates if they can afford to live here.

“Students coming out of college are going where the jobs are,” she said. “But, if they can’t afford housing, they won’t come here.” 

According to the most recent survey by the Housing Finance Authority, the median rent for a two-bedroom apartment, including utilities, was $1,056 in 2010, an increase of less than 2 percent over the previous year. But the state’s vacancy rate of two-bedroom units declined by 4.4 percent.

Law said the economy has put a hold on new rental units being built, and people are staying in rentals longer because of finances and more have moved into rentals because their houses were foreclosed on.

As a result, she said, the organization is anticipating lower vacancy rates and a slight increase in rents this year. The new rental cost survey is due around the end of June.

Rent also stays high because of the continued expense for landlords to maintain units, including property taxes, utilities, and insurance, she added. “It makes it difficult for people to be able to afford,” Law said.

Some graduates will have to continue living with their parents, which is not ideal for either party, she said. Others will end up with two or three roommates to save money.

Jillian Pierce is a Rochester resident working toward her masters in business administration at Southern New Hampshire University. She worked for five years before going back to open up more possibilities. She has one more semester to go.

“Hopefully, I’ll find a job and can pay off my student loans,” she said.

Her dream job is in the creative side of marketing with a socially responsible company in the food industry. Pierce would like to stay on the Seacoast, but she knows it’s competitive.

“It’s going to be tough because there are so many people looking for the same jobs,” she said.

Pierce is one of the business students that got the chance to interact with employers in the area this year through a pilot program of Spark US.

The program was founded by Kaarin Milne and Renee Riedel-Plummer to help students make the leap from academia to the business world. Groups of business leaders volunteer to meet with students at dinners to network and give advice on what it takes to succeed.

“Students are very theoretically prepared, but they have a lack of experience in the real business world,” Milne said.

She said graduates start with high expectations, but the jobs they want are often hard to get. That’s especially true now, because older, more experienced people are holding onto their jobs longer. But, she said, employers can benefit from new perspectives.

Milne is a part-time MBA student and a mother of three. She hopes to improve the local economy and workforce on the Seacoast, where she wants to continue living. She also gets school credit, research and resources out of the project.

“Maybe it’ll make a small impact, maybe it’ll make a big one,” she said.

She is not the only one concerned about keeping college graduates in New Hampshire to maintain a skilled workforce for economic development and a balanced demographic.

Stay Work Play NH is a nonprofit that started in 2009 to further the 55 Percent Initiative made by the Governor’s Task Force on Young Worker Retention. At the time, executive director Kate Luczko said, surveys indicated about 50 percent of graduates stayed in the state. She did not have numbers for other states but said she believes the rate is similar elsewhere.

New Hampshire ranks first in the nation in Stay Work Play’s quality of life index, taking into account education, health, taxes, safety, income and poverty, and a category they call “most livable.” But Luczko said some graduates will simply want to try a different setting.

The most common argument for leaving the state is to get a job, yet local companies argue that they have trouble finding young employees, Luczko said.

“I think it’s something that happens everywhere,” she said.

The nonprofit organization works to retain the “best and brightest” through regional young professional networks, providing resources on living, working and recreating on its website and conducting outreach at colleges.

“You have to leave the comfort of college life and find a job in the real world,” she said. “It can be daunting.”

One of the things Luczko tries to convey is that a graduate’s first job might not be ideal. Many of the state’s businesses are small to medium in size but offer opportunities for advancement. “Every experience is a valuable experience,” she said.

Tom Horgan, president of the New Hampshire College and University Council, said about 20 percent more businesses participated in this year’s job fair, held in April, than last year’s.

“It’s a challenging environment, but students are finding good career opportunities and also searching out alternatives to first careers,” he said. He named the Peace Corps, volunteering and internships as alternative ways to get real-world experience.

New Hampshire’s unemployment rate for March, the most recent data available, was 5.2 percent. That’s a significant improvement over the same time last year (6.4 percent) and much better than the nationwide rate (8.8 percent).

The recession was at its worst in 2009 and is now considered in recovery, said Anita Josten, a research analyst with New Hampshire Employment Security.

“We simply hit the bottom,” she said. “So anything is an improvement from the bottom.”
The average wage of all occupations in New Hampshire is about $21 per hour, and the average is a couple of dollars more in the Portsmouth area.

The top 10 paying jobs in New Hampshire, according to the state Economic and Labor Market Information Bureau, range from about $112 an hour to $66 an hour and are all healthcare practitioners and technical occupations except for chief executives.

Josten said the healthcare sector has traditionally always been strong, but government-mandated reform and budget changes will have an impact.

“Hiring is being curtailed,” she said.

Finance and insurance jobs took a big hit during the recession, she said, but are stabilizing now. She said people with masters in management are still being hired and the availability of administrative positions has improved.

The top three most common occupations are cashier, which is one of the lowest paying at about $9 per hour, salesperson, and registered nurse.

Josten said jobs in accommodations, food services, dwelling services, and retail will become even more plentiful as consumer confidence improves—and it is improving.   

“It’s slow, not bounding, but it’s hopeful,” Josten said.

She said fear of an unpredictable financial future is what stalls the economy. “As long as that uncertainty is there, that’s what keeps things stagnant,” she said.