Can the NIL Industry Change the Trajectory of 98 Percent of Student-Athletes' Careers?

The Name, Image, and Likeness industry owe student-athletes the skills to tackle their first professional job search! Without them 52 percent will likely be UNDEREMPLOYED for years!

If you have a student in college, you are likely shoveling out a small family fortune to ensure your son or daughter has every advantage of launching and leading a successful career.? The great news is that the unemployment rate for a college grad is ridiculously low at 4.8 percent! (In 2020 during the pandemic it reached a high of 9 percent)

However, take that number with a grain of salt as a recent article in the Wall Street Journal by Vanessa Fuhrmans and Lindsay Ellis reported research conducted by Burning Glass Institute for the Strada Foundation shows the number of college graduates in jobs that don’t make use of their skills or credentials is 52 percent!?These graduates have been traditionally labeled as underemployed. That number is SIGNIFICANTLY worse than previously reported. Numerous surveys over the past decade by organizations like PEW, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, AP, NACE, and others have consistently shown the number of college graduates who are underemployed to be in the low to mid 40’s.?

The Strada Education Foundation report, Talent Disrupted, College Graduates, Underemployment and the Way Forward , is likely to be more accurate than any previous reports.? Instead of phone and email surveys of hundreds to thousands of individuals, Burning Glass used its software to examine the resumes of over 10 MILLION people who graduated between 2012 and 2022 and tweaked its algorithms and analytics tools to scan applicant’s work histories, their next role, etc. This gave them access to a significantly larger pool of data and based on data mining techniques incredibly accurate interpretations.

Their research also confirmed earlier research that proved graduates that started out underemployed (lower income jobs) likely remained underemployed a decade later!?

There is good news and bad news in this report.?

The good news is that a bachelor's degree graduate – that launches their career in a job that requires a college degree –will earn nearly 90% more than people with just a high-school diploma. The BAD news the Burning Glass research uncovered, however, is that a bachelor's degree graduate that launches their career– UNDEREMPLOYED –will only earn 25% more than a high-school graduate!? This is a hugely explosive new revelation!

So what does this have to do with the Name, Image, and Likeness industry?

Everything!??

We are all excited about the fact that student-athletes are getting recognition and the financial rewards they deserve for their commitment of time, talent, and health, but we need to keep in mind for the vast majority, these rewards will stop when they graduate!

That's when the real world throws a stiff-arm at them! They have to compete with nearly two million other recent graduates to find a job relevant to their interest and career.

I've not been able to find research that breaks out college grad underemployment for student-athletes. Is it under the 52 percent Burning Glass reported or is higher? Some professionals I've talked to think student-athlete underemployment is worse than the average graduate. Absent of that research, let's assume student-athletes are experiencing similar post-graduation career issues that this research is showing. So - Houston we've got a problem! This is a bigger problem than the NCAA is currently facing, and student-athletes deserve a solution, now!

So here's the point of this article!

The NIL industry has an opportunity to do something colleges and universities– according to this research –have failed to do over the past couple of decades. That is to help over fifty percent of student-athlete graduates land meaningful employment after they graduate.

I’m confident that, with the help of sponsors, brands, alumni, college recruiters, and career centers we have an opportunity to not only focus on providing student athletes financial rewards but provide them the necessary career and professional development support they will need in their first professional job search so they can launch a successful career.

We've got to start encouraging student-athletes to create their career playbook the minute they step foot on the playing field. Research conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) proved that students who invest time in career related activities earlier in their college experience increase their chances of not only getting internships, jobs by the time they graduate, jobs that are relevant to their degree, and at as much as $10,000 more in salary! It's a winning play that for some reason is a hidden secret on campus!

We need to act on this research and develop customized, organized career and professional development programming our student-athletes can access anytime and give them the time and encouragement to invest in career exploration, planning, and management. In this article (click here ) I identify current strategies available for us to move forward.

Let’s work to use this opportunity to give the 98 percent of student-athletes who will not go on to play in professional sports, access to internships, career coaching, mentors, and the career and professional development programming they need to start their careers so they end up in jobs that require a college degree, and at salaries that enable them to start to pay down their student loans and credit cards!

Connect with me on Linkedin and let’s move this from conversation to reality!

Start the discussion right now by sharing your thoughts.

P.S. Thanks Daniel Moneypenny for pointing out the WSJ article!