2027 History Degree Underemployment Report: Which Graduates Are Most Likely to Work Below Their Education Level
Co-Founder and Chief Data Scientist
History graduates often face a tough first-job decision: take available generalist work or compete for roles that truly use research, writing, archival, policy, museum, legal, or analytical skills. A 2024 Burning Glass Institute and Strada report found that 52% of bachelor's graduates are underemployed one year after graduation, making early choices especially important.\
This guide is for history students, recent graduates, and career changers. You'll learn who is most at risk, which roles protect degree value, what skills employers expect, and how to avoid getting stuck in low-credential work.
Key Things to Know About Underemployment in History Industry
- History graduates face elevated underemployment risk because many degree-aligned roles are specialized, experience-sensitive, and concentrated in museums, archives, government, education, law, publishing, research, and nonprofits rather than broad entry-level hiring pipelines.
- The first job matters: the 2024 Burning Glass Institute and Strada analysis found that 52% of bachelor's graduates are underemployed one year after graduation, and early underemployment can narrow later access to college-level roles.
- The strongest protection against low-credential work is not the history major alone; it is a combination of primary-source research, writing samples, internships, digital tools, data literacy, public history experience, and a clearly targeted career path.
- How likely is it for History graduates to become underemployed?
- Is the college curricula for History keeping up with employer expectations?
How likely is it for History graduates to become underemployed?
Underemployment means working in a job that does not normally require a bachelor's degree or does not make meaningful use of college-level skills. For history graduates, this can include retail, food service, basic office support, general customer service, or sales roles taken because degree-level openings require prior experience, technical tools, or a clearer occupational track.
History graduates are not "unemployable," but they are exposed to a higher mismatch risk than graduates from tightly occupational majors such as nursing, accounting, engineering, or computer science. The main reason is structural: a history degree builds strong transferable skills, but many employers do not hire for "historian" at scale. They hire for archivist, policy analyst, paralegal, research assistant, museum educator, grant writer, intelligence analyst, communications specialist, or teacher, each with different proof requirements.
The most useful way to judge risk is to separate history graduates into three groups. This table shows how underemployment risk typically varies by preparation level, not by academic ability alone:
| Graduate profile | Typical underemployment risk | Why the risk changes |
| General history major with no internship or portfolio | Higher | Employers may see strong writing ability but limited evidence of job-ready tools, workplace experience, or a specific career direction. |
| History major with public history, archival, legal, policy, or research internship experience | Moderate | The graduate can connect coursework to real responsibilities and is easier for hiring managers to evaluate. |
| History major with technical specialization, portfolio samples, and targeted applications | Lower | Skills such as digital archives, GIS, database research, grant writing, legal research, or data visualization make the degree more occupationally legible. |
The practical takeaway is that history students should not wait until senior year to "figure out what the degree leads to." The earlier a student chooses a target track, the easier it becomes to build evidence that the degree belongs in a college-level job.
Is the college curricula for History keeping up with employer expectations?
History curricula are strong at teaching interpretation, source evaluation, argumentation, and writing. Those are valuable labor-market skills, especially when misinformation, policy complexity, and digital records are growing. The mismatch appears when programs treat those abilities as self-evident instead of helping students translate them into employer-recognized evidence.
Many history departments still emphasize seminar papers and historiography more than workplace deliverables. That academic foundation matters, but employers increasingly expect candidates to show applied outputs: a digitized collection, a grant narrative, an exhibit brief, a policy memo, a legal research summary, an oral history project, or a data-informed public-facing report.
The table below compares common curriculum strengths with employer expectations. It helps students audit whether their program is building a career-ready profile or mainly an academic one:
| History curriculum area | What it teaches well | Common employer expectation | Risk if missing |
| Research seminars | Primary-source analysis and argument development | Concise research briefs, memos, citations, and decision-ready summaries | Employers may not see how a 20-page paper translates into workplace output. |
| Historiography | Context, debate, and interpretation | Ability to explain evidence to non-specialist audiences | Graduates may sound academic rather than client-, public-, or policy-oriented. |
| Public history or museum studies | Interpretation for communities and institutions | Exhibit planning, collections work, visitor engagement, and digital storytelling | Applicants without applied projects may lose to candidates with internship evidence. |
| Digital humanities | Digital archives, mapping, text analysis, and web-based presentation | Comfort with databases, metadata, GIS, content systems, and digital preservation tools | Graduates may be screened out of roles that combine history with technology. |
| Career preparation | Often varies widely by department | Resume translation, LinkedIn positioning, alumni networking, and targeted job search strategy | Students may apply too broadly and end up in jobs that do not require a degree. |
A strong history program does not need to become a vocational bootcamp. But it should help students connect academic work to recognizable job functions. If your program lacks applied coursework, you can close the gap through internships, campus archives, digital projects, local historical societies, policy labs, legal clinics, or nonprofit research projects.
History sits in a middle-to-high underemployment-risk category because it is a broad liberal arts major with strong transferable skills but fewer direct-entry job titles. The comparison is not that history has "bad" outcomes and other majors have "good" outcomes; it is that some majors have clearer first-job pipelines.
Recent national underemployment research shows that occupational specificity matters. Degrees with required clinical, technical, or licensure pathways tend to convert more directly into college-level employment, while generalist majors require students to create a more intentional bridge to the labor market.
This comparison helps clarify where history stands relative to other broad degree types:
| Major type | Typical first-job alignment | Why it differs from history | Decision implication |
| History and humanities | Variable | Skills are valuable but must be translated into specific roles such as research, policy, archival work, legal support, publishing, education, or communications. | Students need early specialization and applied evidence. |
| Business and accounting | More direct | Employers hire into recognizable entry-level functions such as analyst, associate, audit, operations, or sales roles. | History students targeting business roles should add analytics, finance, project management, or operations experience. |
| Engineering and computer science | More direct but competitive | Technical screening, projects, and internships provide clearer evidence of job readiness. | History students can borrow this model by building portfolios and tool-based proof. |
| Education and health-related majors | Often structured | Licensure, clinical practice, or certification requirements create clearer hiring pathways. | History students considering teaching or allied professional fields should plan credential steps early. |
For students comparing history with more professionally structured graduate pathways, the contrast is useful. Programs such as online masters speech pathology programs, for example, usually map to a defined licensed occupation, while history requires a more customized employment strategy unless paired with teaching certification, archival training, law-related preparation, or another applied track.
Yes, it can. A short-term fallback role does not ruin a career, but long periods in work that does not require a degree can weaken a graduate's signal to employers. Hiring managers often use recent experience as evidence of readiness, so a history graduate who spends several years outside research, writing, education, archives, policy, law, or communications may need extra proof to re-enter degree-level work.
The biggest career-growth issue is skill drift. History graduates build valuable analytical habits in college, but those skills must stay visible. If the resume becomes dominated by service, retail, or basic clerical duties, the graduate may be competing as a general worker rather than as a trained researcher, writer, or analyst.
Graduates in low-credential roles should focus on preserving momentum. The following steps help prevent a temporary job from becoming a long-term mismatch:
- Set a target role before accepting the fallback job, such as archival assistant, paralegal, research coordinator, museum educator, policy associate, grant writer, or communications analyst.
- Choose at least one project outside work that produces a portfolio artifact, such as a research brief, digital exhibit, oral history transcript, policy memo, or annotated data set.
- Build a referral network in the target field through alumni, local historical organizations, government offices, nonprofits, law firms, libraries, or museums.
- Rewrite the resume every 60 to 90 days to emphasize transferable achievements rather than routine duties.
- Apply for bridge roles before the fallback job reaches the point where it defines the candidate's professional identity.
For graduates who eventually want leadership in museums, nonprofits, education ventures, or cultural organizations, management training can be useful later. An online executive MBA is usually not the first fix for underemployment, but it may make sense after a graduate has gained professional experience and wants to move into strategy, fundraising, operations, or administration.
The salary gap can be substantial because degree-level history pathways often sit in professional, research, education, legal, government, or cultural-institution roles, while underemployed graduates may work in occupations with lower median pay and weaker advancement ladders.
Using BLS May 2024 wage data, historians had a median annual wage of $72,890. That figure should not be read as a typical first-year history-major salary because many historian roles require graduate training or specialized experience. It does, however, show the earnings level associated with work that directly uses advanced historical research skills.
The table below compares degree-aligned or history-adjacent roles with common fallback roles. The purpose is not to predict an individual graduate's pay, but to show why job match matters financially:
| Role category | Example roles | Degree use | Recent US wage context |
| Direct history professional roles | Historian, archivist, curator, museum specialist | High | BLS reported a $72,890 median annual wage for historians in May 2024. |
| History-adjacent professional roles | Policy associate, paralegal, grant writer, research assistant, communications specialist | Moderate to high | Pay varies widely by industry, geography, and specialization, but these roles generally make stronger use of college-level writing and research. |
| Bridge support roles | Library assistant, museum visitor services, administrative coordinator | Low to moderate | These can support mobility if they include professional projects, references, and internal advancement. |
| Low-credential fallback roles | Retail, food service, basic call center, non-specialized sales | Low | These roles often pay less and may not build evidence for research, writing, archival, policy, or legal careers. |
The financial risk is not only the first paycheck. Underemployment can also affect student loan repayment because lower early earnings leave less room for emergency savings, relocation, unpaid internships, certification costs, or graduate school applications. Graduates with debt should compare monthly loan obligations against realistic take-home pay before accepting a role that does not build future earning power.
Most history underemployment is not caused by one weakness. It usually comes from several barriers stacking together: unclear career targeting, limited internships, weak translation of academic work, geographic constraints, and competition for a small number of obvious history-labeled roles.
The most common barriers are predictable, which means students can plan around them. These are the issues that most often push qualified history graduates below their education level:
- Applying only to jobs with "history" in the title: Many degree-level options use history skills without using the word history, including policy research, legal support, intelligence analysis, grant writing, records management, publishing, and nonprofit communications.
- Relying on coursework without applied proof: A strong transcript helps, but employers often want internships, writing samples, database experience, exhibit work, or project outcomes.
- Ignoring software and data expectations: Digital archives, content management systems, spreadsheets, citation tools, GIS, metadata standards, and basic data visualization increasingly appear in history-adjacent work.
- Waiting too long to network: Museums, archives, nonprofits, government offices, and policy organizations often hire through small professional networks, referrals, internships, and local relationships.
- Accepting the first fallback job without an exit plan: Immediate income may be necessary, but graduates should define what experience, credential, or portfolio item they will gain before moving on.
- Overlooking geographic concentration: Degree-aligned opportunities may cluster near state capitals, federal agencies, universities, historical institutions, major museums, legal markets, and large nonprofit hubs.
A major current trend is skills-based hiring. Employers may be more open to candidates without a perfectly matched major, but they also expect clearer proof of capabilities. For history graduates, that makes project evidence especially important: a polished memo, archive finding aid, public exhibit plan, grant proposal, or legal research summary can reduce the risk of being screened as a generic liberal arts applicant.
A history resume should not read like a list of courses. It should present the graduate as a researcher, writer, analyst, communicator, records specialist, educator, or policy-minded problem solver. The strongest resumes translate academic work into employer language without exaggerating experience.
Start by choosing a target role family. A resume for museum education should look different from a resume for legal research, policy analysis, archives, publishing, or nonprofit development. Once the target is clear, align the top third of the resume with that role.
Use this sequence to reposition a history resume for degree-level roles:
- Write a focused headline, such as "History graduate with archival research and digital exhibit experience" or "Research-focused history graduate targeting policy and legal analysis roles."
- Replace broad claims like "strong communication skills" with evidence, such as "prepared source-based research briefs," "built annotated bibliographies," or "presented historical findings to public audiences."
- Create a project section for senior thesis work, digital humanities projects, oral histories, exhibit plans, policy memos, grant drafts, or archival processing experience.
- Use keywords from job descriptions, including records management, metadata, public programming, stakeholder communication, legal research, policy analysis, database research, or grant writing where accurate.
- Quantify scope when possible, such as number of sources reviewed, interviews conducted, collection items cataloged, pages edited, events supported, or audience members reached.
- Move unrelated service jobs lower on the resume unless they show leadership, training, scheduling, customer education, conflict resolution, or measurable operations experience.
Legal support is one of the more practical history-adjacent pathways because it values reading precision, evidence organization, timelines, writing, and document review. Graduates exploring that route can compare ABA-approved online paralegal programs to determine whether a focused credential would strengthen their transition faster than a broad graduate degree.
Certifications can help, but they should be chosen for a specific target role. A certificate is most useful when it fills a clear gap that history coursework does not cover, such as legal procedure, archival systems, project management, GIS, grant writing, technical communication, or data analysis.
The table below summarizes credentials and training areas that may improve job alignment for history graduates. Requirements vary by employer, so students should verify whether a credential is preferred, required, or simply helpful before paying for it:
| Target pathway | Helpful credential or training area | Why it can reduce underemployment risk |
| Archives and records | Archival studies certificate, digital preservation training, records management coursework | Shows practical knowledge beyond historical research, especially for collections, metadata, and institutional records. |
| Legal support | Paralegal certificate or legal research training | Translates history skills into document analysis, case preparation, and procedural work. |
| Policy and government | GIS, data analysis, public administration, or policy research training | Helps graduates support evidence-based decision-making instead of being viewed only as writers. |
| Museums and public history | Museum studies certificate, interpretation training, grant writing, or collections management | Builds direct relevance for cultural institutions that expect hands-on experience. |
| Communications and publishing | Technical writing, editing, SEO content strategy, or content management systems | Connects historical writing ability to marketable communication roles. |
| Project-heavy nonprofit roles | Project management, fundraising, grant writing, or program evaluation | Shows readiness to manage deadlines, budgets, stakeholders, and outcomes. |
A certification is usually better than a master's degree when the gap is narrow and occupational. A graduate degree may make more sense for archival leadership, librarianship, teaching, public history specialization, or academic research.
The best strategy is to treat the history degree as a platform, not a finished career plan. Students should build a career track alongside the major so that employers can immediately see how academic training connects to workplace needs.
These steps are most effective when started before senior year, but recent graduates can still use them to move out of underemployment:
- Choose a primary track by sophomore or junior year, such as archives, public history, law, policy, education, nonprofit work, publishing, communications, research, or government.
- Collect job descriptions in that track and highlight repeated requirements, including software, writing formats, internship experience, languages, data tools, public speaking, or subject-matter knowledge.
- Audit your coursework against those requirements and add missing skills through electives, campus projects, certificates, part-time work, or volunteer roles.
- Complete at least one experience that produces employer-visible evidence, such as a finding aid, exhibit plan, research memo, grant draft, oral history collection, policy brief, or legal document summary.
- Build relationships with faculty, alumni, local museums, archives, law offices, government agencies, historical societies, libraries, and nonprofits before you need a job.
- Apply early and narrowly rather than late and broadly; a targeted application to a realistic bridge role is often stronger than dozens of generic applications.
- Evaluate first offers based on learning value, not only job title, by asking whether the role includes professional projects, mentorship, promotion paths, or access to degree-level work.
Students should also avoid the common mistake of assuming one more degree automatically solves underemployment. Sometimes the better move is a short credential, internship, portfolio, or geographic search expansion. For older learners or career changers refreshing academic skills before committing to paid programs, resources such as open university free courses for over 60s can be a low-risk way to test interests and rebuild study momentum.
Some history graduates use low-credential roles briefly while building experience, but others stay longer than planned. The difference usually depends on whether the first job is a bridge or a trap. A bridge job gives the graduate relevant exposure, contacts, and project evidence. A trap job consumes time without building credentials for the next role.
The 2024 Burning Glass Institute and Strada report is important here because it found that underemployment is not always temporary. Many graduates who start below their education level continue to face mismatch years later. For history graduates, that means the first post-college job should be evaluated for exit value, not just immediate income.
These are common examples of bridge roles versus trap roles for history graduates. The distinction is not the job title alone; it is whether the role builds evidence for a degree-level next step:
| Role type | Can be a bridge when it includes | Becomes a trap when it mostly involves |
| Museum front desk or visitor services | Exhibit support, collections exposure, educational programming, donor events, or volunteer coordination | Ticketing, scheduling, and customer service with no path to programming or collections work |
| Library assistant | Cataloging exposure, archive projects, research help, metadata work, or digitization | Routine circulation tasks without professional development or supervisory growth |
| Administrative assistant | Grant tracking, research support, policy documentation, records management, or project coordination | Calendar management and clerical work unrelated to a target field |
| Retail or service job | Temporary income while actively applying, interning, freelancing, or completing a credential | No defined timeline, no portfolio building, and no networking with target employers |
A low-credential job is less risky if it has a written six- to 12-month exit strategy. Graduates should track whether the job is producing new writing samples, references, measurable accomplishments, software skills, or exposure to degree-level professionals.
Other Things You Should Know About History
Yes, it can be worth it if you intentionally connect the degree to a role family such as law, policy, archives, education, communications, publishing, government, or nonprofit work. The risk rises when students graduate with strong general skills but no applied experience, portfolio, or target job path.
Not always. A master's degree may be useful for archives, museum leadership, librarianship, teaching, or advanced research, but many graduates are better served first by internships, legal or technical certificates, grant writing experience, data skills, or a stronger portfolio.
GPA can help for graduate school, fellowships, and some entry-level research roles, but employers usually place more weight on writing samples, internships, references, software skills, and evidence that you can produce useful work outside the classroom.
Keep samples that show research judgment and workplace relevance: a concise policy memo, archival description, exhibit text, grant narrative, legal-style research summary, public history article, or edited excerpt from a thesis. Short, polished samples often work better than long seminar papers.
- Arts, Humanities and Social Science graduates are in demand https://pontydysgu.eu/2020/05/arts-humanities-and-social-science-graduates-are-in-demand/
- Facts about history majors (from credible sources) https://employedhistorian.com/history-major/facts-about-history-majors-statistics/
- Analysis on the Employment Prospect of History Majors https://www.hillpublisher.com/ArticleDetails/1819
- History Majors: Beyond the Myths and Into the Workforce https://www.graydi.us/blog/gray-insights/history-majors-beyond-the-myths-and-into-the-workforce
- History https://www.careerpilot.org.uk/job-sectors/subject/history
- Social science graduates 'have best job prospects' https://www.bbc.com/news/education-24707507
- Underemployed graduates – The Global Knowledge Center https://knowledge.ngkf.com/points-of-view/underemployed-graduates-recent-college-graduates-increasingly-compete-with-experts-for-entry-level-jobs/
