Recent Trends in Higher Education and Labor Force Activity.

Education traditionally has provided a path to the most desirable jobs and career advancement. Even in a sluggish economy, higher education provides considerable advantages in the job market, as demonstrated by the consistently lower-than-average unemployment rates of college graduates. Recent statistics on the employment status of workers as it relates to their educational attainment, show that the premium associated with higher education still holds.' About 1 of 4 persons age 25 to 64 in the work force had completed 4 years or more of college in March 1982 (table 1), compared with 1 of 7 persons in March 1970 . The increase reflects, in large part, the growth of the population 25 to 34 years old-the baby-boom generation born in the decade following World War II . One-third of the 25to 64-year-old work force were in this age group in 1982, and 26 percent of them had graduated from college. In 1982, as in other years, the highest labor force participation rates and lowest unemployment rates were recorded by college graduates-whether men or women or black, white, or Hispanic (table 2) . For example, at 87 percent, the labor force participation rate for all college graduates topped the rate for high school graduates (75 percent) by a wide margin . Unemployment rates were 3.0 percent for college graduates and 8.5 percent for high school graduates. More specifically, 94 percent of the black male college graduates were in the work force, and their unemployment rate was 8.9 percent. Comparable rates for black men with only a high school diploma were 86 percent and 17.3 percent. Male college graduates had roughly the same labor force participation rates regardless of their race or ethnic group. Among female college graduates, the partici-