Over a million of the next decade's college graduates will take possibly "frustrating" jobs which don't make full use of their ability, a Carnegie Commission on Higher Education report released yesterday concludes.

Surpluses

The Commission contends that the surplus of college graduates are an national asset." College students "are no worse off occupationally--and often may be better off in some ways--for having gone to college," .

[the report's conclusion] all true," Robert J. Ginn, assistant director of the Office for Graduate and Career Plans (OGCP), said yesterday. "The job market is bad, and it's going to stay pretty stable."

According to the Commission--whose recommendations appear in the April 9 Chronicle of Higher Education, a weekly newspaper--prospects for this year's college graduates are the best since 1969.

Nevertheless, the Commission's report predicts that about 25 per cent of this decade's college graduates will have to take jobs that don't traditionally require a college education. Half of these jobs--about 1 to 1.5 million--will not be susceptible to "upgrading" to make use of college training, it says.

Bright Prospects

Prospects are "bright" for people entering health-care occupations and managerial or accounting positions in businesses, the report says.

"The only place the Harvard reputation counts is in white-collar 9 to 5 jobs--not too many people are interested in them any more--and most people don't want to make that kind of commitment when they graduate," Ginn said.

In last June's OGCP survey of the 1972 graduating class, 30 per cent said they were undecided about their eventual careers.

"The reason a lot of people are undecided," Ginn said yesterday, "is that they've looked at the options available to them, and they all shit."

35 Recommendations

Besides its report, the Carnegie Commission issued 35 recommendations, concerned with redesigning jobs to make them more interesting and rewarding and with increasing students' options.

To help ease the shortage of teachers' jobs, the report says, states should consider beginning children's education earlier and improving the quality of education.

"We agree with all those recommendations," Ginn said. "But it's probably just like a civil rights report--it contains so many truisms, but it'll have no impact."

The Commission's report was based on a survey of college placement offices, including the OGCP.