Mehgan Moore: Majored in housing and community development

Mehgan Moore got a degree in housing and community development just as the housing crash was destroying opportunities in her field.

In 2009, she was among the many in Sun Devil Stadium for commencement wondering what the future held for her. Five years later, she still does.

Moore, 28, said she could have studied engineering, a field she now knows offered a more stable professional path.

Instead, after graduation she worked for lenders in the short-sale epidemic that gripped the Valley. She was quickly promoted and supervised nearly a dozen people, although she struggled with the nature of the job.

"You're affecting people's lives. You're forcing people onto the streets and you're OK with that," she said. "I just had a problem with that. ... I couldn't handle that."

Moore left her job working for the banks on short sales to take a job with a title company advocating for homeowners. That, too, was emotionally grinding work that ended in December, when she was laid off.

Now she works as a real-estate agent, which she said makes little use of her degree. She is weighing whether a position handling more administrative duties in real estate may be a better fit.

"Why did I go through five years paying for school to get nothing out of it, other than the experience?" she said. "I have all this education but no experience in anything that matters."

What matters to her most these days is the possibility of raising children.

In 2010, Moore married her high-school sweetheart, Ryan Moore, but she said their finances are so tight that they remain without health insurance.

"I've never felt secure enough to think about kids," she said.