College Graduates may not be seeing an improved job market, though the national unemployment rate dropped below 8 percent for the first time in 43 months, according to a jobs report released Friday. Most of the growth may reflect an increase in part-time positions in small businesses, said finance professor Michael Faulkender.

CORRECTION: Due to an editing error, this article incorrectly stated how many students found employment after graduating in May. The article has since been corrected to reflect this.

After a grim summer, a jobs report released Friday showed the national unemployment rate had dropped below 8 percent for the first time in 43 months, indicating an upswing in the job market — but that doesn’t necessarily imply improved prospects for college graduates.

The data in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’s report showed several inconsistencies, said finance professor Michael Faulkender, meaning the economy may not be recovering as strongly as the numbers suggest. While it showed 114,000 more citizens had jobs in September than in the previous month, Faulkender said much of the growth could have stemmed from part-time positions in small businesses, which largely won’t help graduates’ prospects after earning a degree.

“There are too many institutions, in my view, that offer pieces of paper that don’t correspond to skill sets that are valued in the workplace,” Faulkender said. “For those people, their investment is not realized.”

Although Faulkender said a majority of this university’s students obtain degrees that give them a viable chance at finding jobs, 45 percent of last May’s graduates had accepted full-time employment by the summer — relatively in line with the national employment average — according to Career Center data released last month. Nationwide, a Rutgers University survey found that, over five years, about half of graduates could not secure full-time work.

Additionally, the two surveys the BLS uses to calculate job growth — the employment survey, which businesses respond to, and the household survey, which asks citizens whether they are employed — showed wide discrepancies. While the employer survey showed 114,000 more people found jobs, the household survey showed 873,000 additional jobs. The disparity may come from uncounted new small businesses, which create additional part-time positions, though the government isn’t always aware of them, Faulkender said. Such hires could still be included on the household survey, though, which would explain the 759,000-job gap between the two data sets.

“That’s not a great number,” Faulkender said of the 114,000 new jobs. “That barely covers population growth. That’s generally not indicative of a strong, healthy labor market.”

True job growth might lie somewhere in the middle — or unemployment could creep back up — Faulkender said, but conclusions can’t be drawn until future months’ data are available.

Part-time, rather than full-time, jobs are likely behind the unemployment rate drop, Faulkender said, leaving little solace for students looking for full-time jobs.

Senior communication major Lexie Neaman said finding the right work — not just any work — is a daunting task.

“The competition is so high right now that people are taking any job they can get,” Neaman said, “even if it’s not exactly what they want to do.”

While prospects are grim in many fields, students graduating from business, science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields may have more luck finding a full-time position, Faulkender said.

“There is a great deal of unmet demand,” Faulkender said of the STEM, business and finance fields. “It’s that rigorous education that’s going to allow [university students] to take advantage of the kinds of technical jobs that are available in the workplace.”

For alumni dissatisfied with their work situation after leaving the university, the Career Center allows graduates struggling to find full-time work to come back and receive free help.

“If you’re underemployed… you can still try to find something within your general career,” said Career Center Associate Director William Jones. “You never know what door may open up.”