Many recent U.S. graduates  hold low-paying jobs in retail

Chances are if you're a working Millennial, you're working in retail, says a study released Tuesday by Generation Y research firm Millennial Branding in conjunction with PayScale, a company that collects compensation data.

The most common jobs held by Gen Y are merchandise displayer and sales representative, which they are about five times more likely to hold vs. all workers, shows a PayScale analysis of about 500,000 profiles submitted to the company in the past year by Millennials ages 19-30.  Those jobs are also among the lowest paid.

Retail sales associate is listed as the fifth-worst-paid job, at an average of $19,300 a year, only better than cashier, barista, hotel clerk and dietary aide, the findings show.

For an age group struggling with a poor job outlook and hefty student loans, many settle for retail while they look for jobs in their preferred field, says Dan Schawbel, managing partner at Millennial Branding. "A lot of them will end up in these retail jobs while applying for professional jobs and hoping there'll be openings," he says.

Many Millennials in retail have college degrees. Almost half of merchandise displayers — better known as floor clerks — and 83% of clothing sales associates indicated having a bachelor's degree, the PayScale data show.

Mandi Walker, 24, graduated from Culver-Stockton College in Canton, Mo., in May with a degree in graphic design and business but has had almost no luck finding a job in those fields.

Instead, she's continued to work as a sales associate at Kohl's, which she's done for the past eight years during summers and breaks from school. She'll soon start a new job as a supervisor at Midwest retail chain ShopKo at $10.50 an hour, vs. about $9 an hour at Kohl's.

The best paid jobs with companies ranked high among Gen Y are all in science and technology, the survey shows. Google, Intel and Microsoft are all among the top five best companies for Gen Y, ranked based on average pay for Millennials working there, job satisfaction and flexible schedules, among other things.

At the same time, it's most common for Gen Y to work for small companies of 100 employees or less, the study shows.

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Educrats Ban the Number 18

Astonishing zero-tolerance lunacy from the zero-intelligence government educrats we entrust to teach children:

A third-grader has been sent home from a Greeley [Colorado] school to change out of his Peyton Manning jersey because Manning’s No. 18 is too close to the name of a local gang.

CBS Denver reports Konnor Vanatta was forced to take off his jersey because of a Greeley school district policy that bans clothing with “18″ on it.

How do you explain to a third-grader that the reason he can’t wear his prized Peyton Manning jersey is that schools are run by militant fools?

Other numbers banned by the school district include 13, 14, 31, 41, and 81. Yes, I’m serious.

Coming next: bans on various letters of the alphabet.

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Accepting lower grades from poorer students condemned by Cambridge University as 'a cruel experiment'

Cambridge University said accepting poorer students with lower grades would be a 'cruel experiment the could ruin lives' as the institution came under increasing pressure to widen its social mix.

The university's outgoing admissions director said it would resist calls to make 'adjusted offers' for less well-off students as Cambridge stepped into the row over 'social engineering'.

It is just one of the elite universities being urged to admit students with lower grades from poorer backgrounds to match the number accepted from middle-class families.

Geoff Parks, who this month stood down from his 10-year stint as head of the Cambridge admissions office, said students who failed to achieve top A-level results could be doomed to failure.

He added that a lack of academic success could mean they would be ill-equipped to cope with the demands of Cambridge, it was reported.

Dr Parks told the Sunday Telegraph: 'Our bottom line would be that it actually would be a really, really cruel experiment to take a bunch of students and hypothesise that they have what it takes to thrive at Cambridge and then see them fail because they don't.

'We have very high standards within the university and we do fail students in exams.'

He added: 'None of us in good conscience want to be ruining people's lives on some gut feel or political imperative based around getting votes or pandering to some particular bit of the populace.'

There is growing pressure to stop the middle-class dominance of higher education, with the government backing the custom of universities accepting students with lower entry requirements from deprived areas or poorly-performing schools.

Universities minister David Willets said earlier this year there would need to be a 'renewed push' to ensure universities were improving access in return for the government allowing them to charge up to £9,000 in tuition fees.

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