As I'm from the UK, I would only consider someone who had graduated from college/university to be a graduate. College/university students studying for their first tertiary educatonal qualification are termed undergraduates. When someone leaves high school, he (or she) is simply and modestly called a school leaver.

I'm not sure what you're talking about here or why you have written the above, but I am sure that it's relevant to something.
Is it related to the title of the thread "Avoid Yangzhou College of Environment and Resources"?

Re: Global recession affecting teaching positions in American universities: historically, in America, during times of high unemployment, college enrollment increases as unemployment increases. This is especially true in the community colleges. With the increase in students comes a need for teachers. Most of the jobs are in the form of staff (part-time) and three-year contract lecturers (to a much lesser degree). Graduate faculty doesn't usually increase unless there is an increase in state budgets or an influx of cash in the form of private endowments.

Even during good times in America, the pattern is that the ratio of graduate faculty to lecturers remains fairly stable. No money, no growth. My alma mater added five new graduate faculty this past semester. It's not located in the economically-devastated areas near the rust belt or near the automotive industries. It was not greatly affected by the INTERNATIONAL banking debacle in which bankers, lenders, traders and speculators played the derivatives game knowing full well that it is not a sound financial model. (i.e., one can hedge his bets, but he can't bet his hedges over and over again unless there's more money behind the hedge than that which is behind the bet).

It has been nice exchanging ideas. Ta ta, mein liebes.