This sucks.

I busted my ass, did well in school, made smart choices. Now, I am graduating after four years of college that I paid for all myself – not through selling my “virginity” – but through loans. Now what? There are no jobs in the major markets that are even marginally appealing to anyone. I am not lucky enough to have parents who can float me for a year. My dad is a construction worker, but no offense, I am not graduating cum laude to do construction – sorry. I am just not sure I have a choice. But here are the few choices for graduating seniors I could scrounge together:

1. Everyone and their little cheerleader sister are heading to grad school. They don’t even know what for, but they took their GRE, MCAT, GMAT and every other test acronym I can think of. The upside is a delay for entering reality and you can push loan repayment for another 3 years or so, but F&*$ THAT! I need a break from school. I would love to actually get out of the academic world for at least a brief stint. Not writing off grad school totally, but I need about 2 years to figure out what I want to do. That degree in Finance, with a concentration in structured finance, that I am about to get isn’t worth the paper it is printed on. Thanks to my academic adviser! Way to steer me into a stable high growth industry.

2. A couple of my friends are determined to enter the military. Right now, there are serious incentives for entering the military. $10,000 in cash, money for grad school, and they will repay a portion of your school loans. Not too shabby, but we are talking about the military. Let us be straight, the US Military is not the beloved treasure it once was. My brother was in the Army and said he would help repay my loans for me before I join the military. Though tempting, I can’t take him up on it. Even though it will TOTALLY suck, it buys me 3 – 5 years, travel (to a desert somewhere in the Middle East), and serious help with school loans. The other upside is that as college graduates, we jump 5 pay-grades to an E-6 (Staff Sergeant) after training. Obviously I am trying to talk myself into this one – but it just seems drastic.

3. My girlfriend wants to join the Peace Corp, but with the way people LOVE Americans right now, I feel like that is joining the military without being given a gun. I hear stories about people who serve in the Peace Corp and attacked in foreign countries…not cool. Albeit, two of the people I know attacked in Africa were girls – I am just leery of that whole system. There are good stories too. People who get to travel the world, gain different perspectives, and learn different languages. Also, loan deferment is good – but they pay next to nothing, and my family doesn’t have money to spot me. I almost feel like the PC is more for rich kids who don’t want to go into the family business just yet. Either way, language experience in Swahili or something like that is not exactly going to a huge resume builder.

4. So many people are now running to get certified with education credits so they can teach. I am not one of those. I can’t teach. I would want to bang hot high school schools and 6-year-olds annoy the piss out of me. Noble profession, just not for me.

5. The Priesthood or some other religious vocation? I will pick up the Rosetta Stone – Swahili edition before I do that. Again, don’t like 6-year-olds.

6. There is always the option to just suck it up. Suck it up, and try my luck out in the job market. The problem is that there are tons of people in there late 20s through their 50s competing for the same jobs. People with ridiculous experience right now. I read in FORTUNE that GE right now has 50-year-old former executives with MBAs and law degrees, applying for the same jobs as college graduates. One thing is for sure – I wouldn’t pick me.

Seriously though – if I missed an option, please let me know. Yes, the idea of porn star and circus performer did cross my mind, but again – trying to not waste the $70,000 I just spent on school.

Senate Passes GI Bill Education Expansion Legislation

The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly passed an expansion to the GI Bill last week that aims to extend educational benefits to soldiers who have served more than three years in Iraq or Afghanistan.

The GI Bill, formally known as The Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, originally eased the cost of education for veterans returning home after World War II. Legislators say the benefits aren’t keeping pace with today’s expenses and sought to make changes.

Extending benefits could have greater or lesser impact on various campuses across the country, according to affiliates’ coverage. [Uwire]

Jen Wang of Short Hills, New Jersey, took her first SAT when she was in sixth grade, long before she would start filling out college applications.

“My family thought it was very important for me to do well on this test, and I basically obtained nearly every SAT study guide out there by the time I was a junior in high school,” she said. “For Christmas one year, I received an electronic device that allowed me to practice the SAT’s ‘on-the-go.’ “

After all that preparation, she ended up attending a school that has made the SAT Reasoning Test, generally known as the SAT, the most widely used college admissions exam in the United States, optional.

Her school, Connecticut College, is one of a growing number of colleges and universities that are making the SAT optional in the admissions process. In May, two highly selective schools — Smith College in Massachusetts and Wake Forest University in North Carolina — decided to drop the SAT and ACT, which some students take as an alternative to the SAT, as requirements for admission. [CNN]