''official says
job prospects
for liberal arts
grads brighter
By MARK GINDIN
Daily staff writer
Surveys indicating a bright job outlook for.
engineers and a dismal view for liberal arts
graduates do not present a complete picture of job-,
hunting results, according to a University placement
officer.
The figures showing a lack of demand for the
liberal arts are "deceiving" because they are based
primarily upon surveys of on-campus recruiting, ac-
cording to Deborah May, assistant director of the
Career Planning and Placement Office on campus.
MOST CAMPUS recruiting is done by major cor-
porations that can afford such an expensive
procedure, May said. "Large companies are not the
place liberal arts graduates usually choose to go,"
she said. The surveys represent the resulting lack of
liberal arts graduates placed in large corporations as
a sample of the total job market.
The 1979-80 Annual Report from the CPP office
showed high percentages of graduates who are either
employed or who return to school, "belying the
popular assumption that liberal arts students cannot
get jobs."
Ninety-one percent of the graduates who inter-
viewed on campus in 1979-80, and 75 percent of those
who did not, are now either employed or in school.
THE FIRST YEAR out of school is "tough" for
liberal arts graduates because the jobs do not search
for the student, the student must hunt for a job, May
said. The student "must make his own luck" by
preparing for job hunting while in school, she said.
"There are hundreds and hundreds of jobs out
there," said May, "and the liberal arts degree is very
flexible. The skill learned in school is not the major, it
is the way of looking at the world."
ROUGHLY ONE-HALF of the male graduates and
two-thirds of the female graduates eventually choose
their own careers, and many of those careers are not
related to the degree, May said. "The common
mistake has been for people to equate education with
work," she said. "The major is not the label."
Businesses do not usually hire liberal arts
See OUTLOOK, Page 9
The Michigan Daily
Vol. XCI, No. 62-S
Ann Arbor, Michigan-Friday, August 14, 1981
Ten Cents
Sixteen Pages
Reagan hails 'turn around'
Signs largest
tax, spending
cuts in
U.S. history
From AP and UPI
SANTA BARBARA, Calif.-
President Reagan, declaring he was
ending a half-century of "excessive"
government growth, signed into law
yesterday the largest package of tax
and spending cuts in U.S. history.
"THEY ARE signed and now all we
have to do is implement them," the
president said during the fog-shrouded
ceremony at his ranch atop the Santa
Ynez mountains.
The bills slash more than $35 billion in
spending next year and hand nearly
$750 billion in taxes back to business
and the people over five years.
The new laws-including a 33-month,
25 percent cut in personal income tax
rates-embody the economic recovery
program the president championed on
the way to the White House as the an-
swer to the nation's economic and
social ills.
"THE CREDIT goes to the American
people," Reagan said. "They wanted a
change and spoke with a more
authoritative voice than the special in-
terests."
Since the legislation doesn't take ef-
fect until October, Reagan predicted
the current "soft and soggy economy"
would continue for the next few months.
The president, who pledged to cut the
budget and taxes during his campaign
and has pursued that goal since his
inauguration, said the bills represented
"a turnaround of almost a half a cen-
AP Photo
AT A DESK outside his ranch in California, President Reagan signs into law the largest tax cut in U.S. history. The
president hailed the signing of his landmark tax and spending cut laws as a "new beginning" for the United States and assa
final reversal of the trend toward "excessive government."
tury of a course this country's been on'
and mark an end to excessive growth of
government bureaucracy and gover-
nment spending and government
taxing."
ABOUT 30 PEOPLE protesting his
decision to produce and stockpile the
neutron weapon were outside the gate
to his ranch when reporters arrived.
However, the main gate is about five
miles from the ranch itself and the
demonstrators went unnoticed by the
president.
The bills he signed slashed planned
spending on domestic programs by an
estimated $130.5 billion in the next three
years and reduced individual and
business income tases by $749 billion
through fiscal year 1986. Although the
spending bill was cut by a huge amount
over what Carter had proposed, it
nevertheless is larger than spending for
the previous year or any other year. So
Reagan, in effect, also signed the
largest spending bill in history.
By reducing federal spending on
domestic programs the bill effectively
revrses the course of government
begun by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It
cuts spending for Social Security by $2.2
billion, mostly by eliminating the $122-
a-month minimum benefit. Spending
for food stamps is cut by $1.7 billion,
and for employment training, $4.6
billion. It also reduces by $11.6 billion
the government's authority to enter in-
to contracts to build low-income sub-
sidezed housing. Many other programs
also are affected.
Critics, mainly Democrats, have ac-
cused Reagan of taking a meat ax to
programs that help the poor while
lavishing billions in tax breaks on the
rich. There is also suspicion among
critics that the economic assumptions
of the program are wrong and could
lead to the "economic Dunkirk" the
president's top aides seek to avoid.
Virtually nothing escaped the budget
knife and program revisions-except
national defense, which has been
promised substantial, real increases af-
ter inflation.