How about this for a business idea

Seth Godin makes some excellent points in his blog post “Graduate school for unemployed college students”.  Basically he says unemployed college grads should just approach the next 12 months as if it was another year of school, and spend the time contributing to the community while learning marketable skills.  Great concept, but as 3rdgirl and snappers15 point out, this is hard to pull off when faced with student loans or other financial responsibilities.  Seth acknowledges this in his followup-post, “Tough!”, but doesn’t offer these people any actual solutions.

How about this for a business idea - and solution to the grad’s financial problem - :

A joint recruiting and student-loan firm that does four things: 

1. places college grads with non-profits for part time, minimum-wage paid work ($7,540 per year for a 20hr workweek), plus bare-bones health insurance.
2. provides study-sessions/instruction/seminars/workshops for real world, marketable skills
3. provides some form of student-loan deferment for the candidate’s current loans, removing that burden for one year from the grad’s shoulders
4. acts as a recruiter for the grads, generating recruiting fees (to cover costs)

Come to think of it, why can’t our colleges do this, already?  Or why can’t they provide real-world marketable skills in the first place?