Students at higher levels of education attend school/university in the hope of succeeding in the job market. An important aspect of succeeding in the job market is putting into practice the skills and knowledge acquired at school (Robst, 2006 – United States for further references – remains ref. in this article). Robst (2006) briefly discusses the relationship between the number of years of schooling required to obtain employment and the number of years of schooling completed in the United States of America. In this regard, it can be said that workers who have received more education than the job requires are overeducated, and workers who have received less education than the job requires are undereducated. Both types indicate a mismatch between education level and job requirements. But the quantity of schooling (years of schooling) is not the only way to take into account the match between schooling and employment. Another way to do this is to look at education level rather than years of study (Sloane, 2003). Additionally, employees may be mismatched when the level of education (either in years or level of education) is consistent with job requirements, but the type of education is not (Sloane, 2003). An example of this would be someone with a degree in architecture (from higher education) ending up with a job in the social sciences. Even though education level may be equal, there is still a mismatch between education level and job requirements. Robst (2006) focuses on the mismatch between the type of education and job requirements in the United States. He mentions that there is still no specific theory explaining the relationship between educational level and mismatch of job requirements. A common theory that explains the mismatch...... middle of paper...... higher education. Some researchers argue that education has served this function, but critics argue that education may have served this function to a large extent (Freeman, 1976 – in Rumberger). This means there are too many highly skilled workers for the few jobs that require such a high standard. Added to this are numerous periods of economic setbacks (the 1973 oil crisis for example) which even increased the need for highly qualified people because fewer jobs were available. Thus, Rumberger (1981 – veranderen naar later jartal en number 14) carried out an investigation into the mismatch between the level of education and job requirements. He found that nowadays more and more people are overeducated because there are more people with high levels of education while the available jobs have not increased along with the increase in the number of highly educated people..