Rates and severity of underemployment among a sample of college graduates were assessed using objective and subjective measures. Attention was directed to job characteristics related to underemployment, gender differences in the characteristics, and the effect of college type attended, college major, and academic performance. The data were drawn from two sources: (1) 9,039 responses to both the Cooperative Institutional Research Program's 1970 freshman norms survey and the 1977 followup survey on education, work, and leisure; and (2) the Department of Labor's "Dictionary of Occupational Titles," which rates 12,099 occupations on 44 characteristics. The data confirm previous findings that underemployment among college graduates is widespread, both in terms of the skills actually utilized by their jobs, and in terms of subjective assessments. While neither women nor blacks were disproportionately underemployed, white males retained a distinct advantage in terms of earned income. Higher levels of income were obtained by those attending private universities, and engineering and business majors earned the most money. Finally, characteristics that were found to be related to underemployment indicated a mismatch between higher education and jobs available for college graduates. (SW)