Last week, the Wall Street Journal released a survey of the top 25 colleges and universities whose graduates are most favored by prominent national recruiters in both the public and private sectors. Not a single SUNY school was on that list. Not the end of the world, probably, but that was the good news.

According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, 19.7 percent of 2009 college graduates had found a job, compared to 51 percent in 2007. A year later, things haven’t changed much for the better. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, last month’s national unemployment rate was 9.6 percent ‘ down just a tenth of a percent from August of last year.

Things are looking pretty bleak.

Not only are there no SUNY schools in the top 25 favorite schools for recruiters (which, by the way, was stocked with 19 public universities), but SUNY didn’t make the top 100, or even the list of 31 honorable mentions tacked on at the end of the survey.

The fact that the 64-school SUNY system (with its $10 billion annual budget) is completely left out of this survey ‘ a survey with significant concrete implications ‘ is frankly embarrassing. If another SUNY school had beaten BU to the list, that would have been bad enough, but that didn’t even happen.

This is simply more evidence that SUNY be allowed to flourish, though our state government refuses to let it happen. The SUNY Empowerment Act, which would have allowed individual SUNY campuses to enjoy greater autonomy, was left out of this year’s state budget. Though SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher continues to push for reform, 2010 seems to have been a missed opportunity. SUNY, sadly, is still stuck with Albany.

So if the national labor market is historically rough, and if SUNY remains an afterthought in the national market, where does that leave us at Binghamton?

This University has taken steps to break into the bigger scene. Our move to Division I athletics, though, has had decidedly mixed results. And our increased emphasis on research and professional schools, which tends to sacrifice our liberal arts roots in favor of our business and engineering programs, still has (at least according to the Wall Street Journal) yet to yield nationwide results.

The long-term benefits of BU’s projects are yet to be seen. In the meantime, especially for graduates entering the 2010-11 job market, do what you can to get ahead. Take advantage of the Career Development Center, start your job search early, maybe get an internship or two, you know how it goes.

But do more than you thought you had to. Apparently, we’re in a tougher spot than we thought.