To get a sense of the job market new college graduates face, consider the latest crop of nurses from Santa Rosa Junior College . Just eight of the 55 students are leaving with job offers — and that’s considered good news. Last year, no graduates of the California community college’s associate degree nursing program had a job in hand. “We’re excited that finally something is happening,” said Sharon Johnson, the program director. This year’s slightly better performance is one of many signs around the country that 2010 is a better year than 2009 for landing that first job out of college — but not by much. New nurses are looking for something — anything — as the down economy has slowed retirements in their otherwise promising field. Teachers also face intense competition for positions that in their case have been made scarce by state and local budget cuts. Even graduates with sought-after degrees had less than sizzling prospects. Fewer than half of U.S. accounting majors could boast job offers this spring, one study found. There are signs of life. Employers plan to hire 5% more new college graduates this year than they did a year ago, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, which also polled the future accountants. The road to recovery appears long, however. In 2007, about two-thirds of soon-to-be graduates in the association’s student survey reported having job offers in hand that spring. Just three years later, about 40% could say that. “It’s been a little depressing,” said Lauren Wiygul, who will earn a master’s degree in secondary English education from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, this summer. She applied to more than a dozen private schools and every public district in the Atlanta area. After someone in human resources for the system in Georgia’s Gwinnett County mentioned a possible language arts opening, she took a day off work, traveled to Atlanta and personally delivered her resume to 13 middle and high schools, hoping to introduce herself to principals. She met a lot of sympathetic secretaries but not one principal. She has yet to get an interview. “One principal, she wasn’t rude, but she just e-mailed back, ‘Positions are posted on our website,’” Wiygul said. “I have worked really hard to be able to teach. I just feel stuck.” Education majors have it toughest of the 2010 grads surveyed by the association of colleges and employers. Fewer than one in four had received job offers this spring. The list of least sought-after majors included the physical sciences (such as chemistry and physics), languages, English, history or political science and journalism. Along with perennially popular accounting, the most attractive majors to employers were business administration, computer science, engineering and mathematics. The private sector outlook didn’t improve last week when the Labor Department announced U.S. businesses added just 41,000 jobs in May, an indication employers are not yet ramping up hiring despite other signs of economic recovery. The department offered better news Tuesday, saying job openings rose in April to their highest level since December 2008. Some college career counselors report encouraging signs. Trudy Steinfeld, executive director of New York University’s Wasserman Center for Career Development, said banks and consulting firms that were invisible a year ago are “staffing up like crazy.” But at the University of Texas at Arlington, associate director of career services Cheri Butler is advising students shut out of bank jobs to seek finance department positions in government, health care and education. Wayne Wallace, director of the University of Florida’s Career Resource Center, said that regardless of the field, the watchwords for new graduates are patience, flexibility and short-term sacrifice for long-term gain. “Graduates, if they are willing to be geographically mobile and reasonably flexible about what they’re willing to do to start out, tremendously increase their odds for success,” he said. Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business devised a plan to improve the chances for graduates in its residential master’s in business administration program. It included a dean’s letter to 26,000 alumni, an electronic booklet featuring students’ resumes and a job bank run by students with jobs for those still searching. That last effort was dubbed “The Lonely Hearts Job Search Club.” “A simple plan, delivered to the right people with a clear objective, can go a long way in helping students during a challenging economy get to where they want to be,” said Erik Medina, the school’s director of graduate career services. Last month, 74% of students had job offers at graduation, compared with 66% last year, he said. For nurses, the long-term forecast is excellent. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 22% job growth for registered nurses by 2018 as baby boomers age and nurses emerge as cheaper primary care alternatives to doctors. But for now, jobs for new nurses are relatively scarce. More experienced nurses are putting off retirement or working extra hours, some because their spouses have been laid off, nursing school officials say. “I look at this like an air pocket,” said Marla Salmon, dean of the University of Washington School of Nursing. “The fact is we’re still climbing in terms of the number of nurses needed. But the recession has definitely slowed hiring.” Salmon said she is encouraging graduates to think creatively. That could mean residencies — part of a doctor’s career path but a relatively new development in nursing — and mentored job-sharing arrangements. The tough market has caused some nursing graduates to lower their expectations, accepting jobs in long-term care and community health centers rather than top research hospitals. Corey Fry, who will graduate this week with a master’s degree from the highly regarded University of California , San Francisco School of Nursing, cast his search for nurse practitioner jobs nationwide. He’s joined professional organizations and honed his networking skills. After reading an article by a University of Maryland nurse practitioner, he sent the author an appreciative e-mail and attached his resume. He has a phone interview there this week, and leads in St. Louis and Oregon. “We’ve talked as classmates and we all agree our first job might not be our perfect job, but we need to get that first job,” Fry said. “Then you can move beyond that if you need to.” Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

DAVIE, Fla. (AP) — Professor Derron Bowen teaches high school math to college students, patiently chalking equations on the board on basic arithmetic topics such as the speed of a driver on a 20-hour trip. Bowen’s class at Broward College in South Florida is for students who didn’t score high enough on an entrance test to get into college-level math. In all, about two-thirds of students entering the community college need to take at least one remedial course in math, English or reading. Nationwide, about a third of first-year students in 2007-08 had taken at least one remedial course, according to the U.S. Department of Education . At public two-year colleges, that number rises to about 42%. Education observers worry that the vast numbers of students coming to college unprepared will pose a major roadblock to President Barack Obama ‘s goal for the United States to once again lead the world in college degrees. COMMUNITY COLLEGES: 6 states aim to reform remedial programs “We don’t get there from here,” said Bob Wise , president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia . In October, the Education Department reported that many states declare students to have grade-level mastery of reading and math when they do not. In a 2007 ACT National Curriculum Survey of college professors, 65% said their states poorly prepare students for college-level coursework. The survey found that professors want students with stronger skills in specific areas, while high schools typically impart a less comprehensive understanding of a broad range of topics. In his remedial math class in Florida, Bowen sees students who haven’t been in school for a decade or more, but some haven’t even had time to hang up their high school diplomas. “How were they allowed to go through?” Bowen said. “I’m thinking, ‘If I could have been teaching you back when you were 6, 7, you would be a powerhouse today.’” The Obama administration is pushing states to adopt tougher standards, and governors and education leaders across the country are working together to propose a uniform set of common standards. A first draft was released in March, and a final proposal could come this summer. For others, the problem points to the need to develop alternative forms of job training for people who aren’t academically inclined and are unlikely to finish college. “We’re telling kids you’ll be a third-class citizen if you don’t go to college,” said Marty Nemko, an education policy consultant and author. “And colleges are taking kids who in previous generations would not have gone to college.” Nemko favors an apprenticeship program similar to those offered in Finland , Japan and Germany. That’s a point that Daniel Paz, a student in Bowen’s class, says he can relate to. “College is not for me,” said Paz, who graduated from high school last year and is considering a career in criminal justice. “It’s something I have to do, but if there was another way, than I’d be doing something else.” Some students in remedial courses are older workers trying to jump-start a new career. But a sizable amount are recent graduates who performed well in high school: A 2008 study by the nonprofit Strong American Schools found that nearly four out of five remedial students had a high school GPA of 3.0 or higher. The price of providing remedial training is costly. The Alliance for Excellent Education estimates the nation loses $3.7 billion a year because students are not learning basic needed skills, including $1.4 billion to provide remedial education for students who have recently completed high school. “From taxpayers’ standpoint, remediation is paying for the same education twice,” Wise said. Students who need remedial classes are also more likely to drop out: Those taking any remedial reading, for example, had a 17% chance of completing a bachelor’s degree, according to 2004 Education Department data. At the recent annual American Association of Community Colleges conference, Melinda Gates, co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, called improving or reducing remediation the best way to improve completion rates at community colleges, which hover at around 25%. “Right away, your dreams of going to college are deferred, because technically you’re not in college,” she said. “If you start in a remedial class, the odds are that you will never finish a credit-bearing course in that subject.” She pointed to positive models: El Paso Community College, which gives prospective students placement tests while still in high school, and Mountain Empire Community College in Virginia, where there are new lesson plans and textbooks to move students through remedial education faster. The Gates Foundation is spending $100 million to develop new models for remedial education. Advocates say the need for reform is urgent, pointing to studies that show more jobs in the future will require more education, and that people with less education have been hit with higher levels of unemployment during the recession. Nemko doubts the notion that most workers will need a higher level degree. “In every corporation or government agency, there needs to be a small number of people coming out with the great new ideas,” he said. “But for everyone one of those, they need 20 to 50 worker bees who are there to provide the product.” At Broward College, there are signs of improvement: The percentage needing remedial education has dropped, from 85% of first-time college students to 74% in the 2009 incoming class. “I don’t remember learning any of this stuff in high school,” said CaSonya Fulmore, 40, who was laid off from her job as a customer service supervisor with American Express Co. last year. Fulmore is taking a preparatory math class and studying for a degree in social science, with hopes of becoming a counselor. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.