More Hampton Roads college grads end up back home

Henna Nadeem and Odessa Knipp met on the bus to middle school in Virginia Beach a decade ago.

Knipp was a grade older. They had different tastes in music and movies; Nadeem could do without musicals. But they were drawn to each other, partly because of their shared work ethic - "just getting ahead, doing as much as we can," Nadeem said.

Knipp enrolled in Virginia Wesleyan College. Nadeem followed a year later. They chose different majors - religious studies for Knipp, criminal justice for Nadeem - but they'd study together. Both maintained averages between A and B.

Now graduates, they are partners in thwarted hopes and broken dreams.

Knipp, who received her degree in 2010, works at a day care center. Nadeem, who graduated from Virginia Wesleyan this year, could find only a temporary summer job on campus paying little above minimum wage.

Both are living at home with their parents.

"I thought that I'd find a job with a nice starting salary and have my own apartment," said Knipp, 24. "I was delusional up until the time I graduated."

About 53 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds lived at home last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The number may be higher for new college graduates. Eighty-five percent of seniors polled in 2010 by Twentysomething Inc., a marketing firm outside Philadelphia targeting young adults, expected to move home after graduation for financial reasons.

"Now you don't ask, 'Where do you live?' but, 'Where are you from?' because you know they're probably still there," said Steven Hawthorne, a recent Virginia Tech graduate who plans to live with his parents in Chesapeake until he starts law school next year.

They're called the boomerang generation, bouncing back to where they started.

"You come back to the same bed, same pictures, same atmosphere, but you're a different person," Hawthorne said.

"It's physically taking a step back, but you can't look it at it like that. It's more of an adaptation to the world around us."

Nadeem and Knipp didn't boomerang. They stayed home during college to cut costs. That eliminated the transition from freedom to dependence. But for Knipp, who will marry next year, it also deprived her of "a very important phase."

"I'm dependent on my parents and then I'll be pretty much dependent on him, so I feel almost like a 1950s housewife," she said. "I'm missing that in-between place where you grow up and decide to do things on your own."

For Nadeem's parents, Pakistani immigrants who sought a better life, their daughter's troubles have burst their faith in the American dream.

Her father, Ahmad, has advised her to look for jobs in other countries. "Once upon a time," he said, "you come to the U.S. and there is a piece of the pie. Not anymore."

The U.S. unemployment rate for 20- to 24-year-olds was 14.6 percent in July, higher than any other adult age bracket, according to data released Friday. The overall rate was 9.1 percent.

Even in good times, that age group has a higher unemployment rate, said William Johnson, a professor of economics at the University of Virginia, because "people at the beginning of their careers are more likely to move between jobs."

The economic slump has magnified that trend, he said, because older workers are delaying retirement, reducing the number of openings for graduates.

Knipp had hoped to get a job at a library or museum and eventually get a master's in library science. "I like being by myself and with books and helping people do research," she said.

She widened her search to include coffee shops, nursing homes, retail stores. "I was passing my resumes out everywhere," she said. Mostly, she was told she didn't have enough experience.

She got the day care job, supervising 1-year-olds, last summer. It's OK, but it's not what she went to school for.

Nadeem, 22, thought she'd benefit from an internship last winter with the Virginia State Police. She's applied for more than 30 government and human resources jobs. Her part-time clerical position at the college will end this month.

Hawthorne studied history and psychology at Tech, graduating with an average between an A and B. He had three computer-related internships with the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, so he's zeroed in on information technology jobs.

He's applied for more than 50 jobs. He expects to get his first interview this month.

Until he lands a job, he's doing chores around the house - painting, cutting the grass: "My father is the type of guy who, when you ask him, 'What do you need me to do?' can reel off five things. Each day I do as many as I can."

The prolonged job search could hold long-term consequences for graduates, Johnson warned.

Yale University professor Lisa Kahn has estimated that people who graduate in pinched times earn an average of 17.5 percent less than peers who enter the job market in more robust periods. That differential disappears only after 17 years.

Fifty-nine percent of parents have given financial support to adult children after they have left college, according to a recent poll by the National Endowment for Financial Education and Forbes.com.

Fifty percent said they have provided housing, 48 percent have helped with living expenses, 29 percent with spending money and 28 percent with medical bills.

In turn, 75 percent of adult children said they were contributing financially - 52 percent, for instance, chip in for groceries and 31 percent for gas - and 42 percent in non-financial ways.

Each household seems to have its own arrangement.

Hawthorne, 22, said his father has hinted at rent payments after he gets a job. For now, aside from the chores, he occasionally does dishes and laundry and sometimes pays for groceries, though that depletes his savings.

Ahmad Nadeem said he wouldn't think of charging Henna for anything: "We are behind her 100 percent. We are not going to ask her to give us a penny."

It's more complicated for Knipp, who has car and student loan payments. Her parents pay for the car; she covers $400 a month for the loans. "I've got $96 in my savings account," she said.

Combined with a second mortgage taken out to pay for tuition, Connie Knipp figured the costs to help her daughter total $1,000 a month. "Education is supposed to set you free," she said, "not bankrupt you."

Their savings have shrunk by several thousand dollars, Connie Knipp said.

The air conditioner just went out on their 1998 Ford Explorer. She doesn't know when they'll fix it. "I'd like to get a new car before I die."

She also worries about what her daughter is missing. Connie likes Odessa's fiancé, but Connie grew up poor in Bristol. She saw too many women abused and their husbands drunk when their marriages went sour.

"I know they love each other," she said, "but I would still like to know she's going into a marriage with some possibility of independence."

Living at home can offer comfort and security, but also some stressful moments.

A few weeks back, Odessa had four girlfriends over for a movie-watching slumber party - just like old times. But she and her mom have squabbled, mostly when she's out late and doesn't call.

Once, after Odessa didn't reply to several phone messages, Connie threatened to call the police. Odessa came home. They fought. She threatened to move out. They didn't talk for a few days.

Odessa doesn't complain about a lack of freedom, but she chafes at the "typical parent stuff," like her father's reminders not to stay out late before a workday. "It's like the little kid pep talk in high school," she said.

It doesn't have to be tense. Hawthorne said his relationship with his parents has improved since high school. It's a matter of mutual respect, he said.

His parents don't tell him when to come home. He usually gets back by midnight. "I wouldn't feel comfortable coming back at 3 with a bunch of friends," he said.

At the Nadeems' apartment, Henna shares a room with her sister, Hira, 15. "She can stay here, as far as I'm concerned, until she gets married," said her mother, Rukhsana. "This is her home."

Henna said she's in no rush to leave. "It's not weird for me to think I'm living with my family. I can't honestly say there are any disadvantages."

But her barren job search has disillusioned her so much that she questions the "mantra" that got her through life so far: "Don't get into any fights. Get good grades so you can get into a good school. That's how you'll get a good job. So I studied and had basically no social life...

"If it yields these results," she said, "what was the point of going to college?"

Philip Walzer, (757) 222-3864, phil.walzer@pilotonline.com