Where to go

It’s graduation season again for the University of the Philippines Cebu. The campuses across the country have stages decked with sunflowers, the official symbol of the graduation season. The air is filled with applause, camera clicks, and hopeful speeches. Students march, the coveted sablay on their shoulders and eyes brimming with dreams. Families beam with pride. For a moment, there is triumph --it is a success for every parent to see a child finish in no less than the country’s premiere state university.

But the question always comes after the ceremony: Where to go? Increasingly, the answers are not as clear or promising as they used to be. A college degree once held the promise of upward mobility, of better chances and brighter futures. Today, that promise feels frayed. Many new graduates find themselves in jobs that pay far too little and demand far too much. Some take work outside their fields of study --anything that pays the bills. Others leave the country, hoping to find in foreign lands what they couldn’t find at home: fair pay, growth, dignity.

The reality is sobering: there are fewer opportunities now. Entry-level jobs are scarce. The job market is saturated. In many industries, compensation hasn’t caught up with inflation --or with the cost of an education. A graduate might spend years studying Engineering or Communications, only to earn a starting wage that cannot even cover rent or loan payments.

This is not a failure of students, or families, or schools alone. It is a systemic failure. Our government must take a long, hard look at the skills we are teaching and the opportunities we are creating. Are we equipping students for the real world? Are the modules taught with industry demands, or are we simply producing graduates for a market that no longer exists?

It is time to reassess. To bridge the growing gap between what is taught in classrooms and what is needed in communities and industries. To invest not just in diplomas, but in pathways --clear, supported, dignified routes to employment, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

Graduation should mark the beginning of possibility, not the start of disillusionment. Our students deserve more than applause. They deserve a future they can step into with confidence, not uncertainty because what they have now is not a crisis of competence but a crisis of opportunity. It is very clear that we need to up our game and skills to be learned.

As I bid goodbye to the graduating class this year, I wish them the best that they need not have to struggle in what to do after. The real world awaits them in whatever way. May be this be a reminder that once the diploma is given, the struggle gets more difficult and fight becomes deeper. I wish the best in their journeys ahead and may be it not as difficult as it already is. Just like a housemate from “Pinoy Big Brother” as he or she exits, “welcome to the outside world.”