Juicy Learnings from the Harvard Crimson's Graduation Report

The Harvard Crimson published its annual graduation survey with job stats for the Class of 2009, which is a cool barometer for the migration of America's well-to-do whippersnappers. What do their jobs tell us about the state of the economy? Let's grade the industries. Finance flunks. Media gets a D. Health and education receive gold stars. And grad school graduates cum laude.

The survey also includes more, um, intimate details.

But first let's surf the zeitgeist. Where are kids going these days? And what are they doing? A quick guide:

Where They're Going
About 60% of grads are staying on the East coast. The remaining 40% breaks down about evenly between the the rest of America and a foreign country.

44% to Boston and NYC
25% non-East coast America
17% overseas
9% New England
5% Washington DC

What They're Doing
For the first time in years, Harvard is sending more kids to grad school than finance/consulting. In the last two years, finance plunged from 23% to 11%, while consulting jobs were also halved, as the percentage moved from 16% to above 8%. Who's collecting the Crimson? Education, health services and unemployment. Education and health jobs doubled, and grad school accounts for a quarter of graduates. Year over year employment-at-graduation fell from 66% to 59% (which is actually even with 2007).

What They're Earning
The median and mean is around $44K. But it also looks like about 4% of the students are likely to make six-figures salaries in their first year out of school.

One More Thing
Finally, for those shrieking that college has become an expensive excuse to have lots of casual sexual relations, the following graphs should be a little surprising.