She belongs to the most educated generation in history, but Ms Wenham's fears are shared by most of her peers, according to the latest Future Leaders Index of 18- to 29-year-olds, compiled by university campus retailer Co-op and accountancy firm BDO. The survey examined the attitudes of more than 5000 young Australians to study and work. It paints a sobering portrait of a generation desperately arming themselves with skills and qualifications, but with little faith they'll actually land the positions they want. Two in three respondents were concerned about getting a career-related job. More than half felt job prospects in their field weren't strong. Among tertiary students, one in two said they felt so pessimistic about their prospects that they were considering further study so they could avoid making career decisions.

Their doubts may be justified. Today's graduates are facing the worst job prospects in a quarter of a century - and perhaps even longer, the latest research shows. "I wouldn't use the word 'bleak' … but these are the toughest labour market conditions since the early 1990s, that's for sure," says Graduate Careers Australia strategy and policy advisor Bruce Guthrie. "The demand for graduates has dropped away." Universities haven't changed how they teach overnight. The issue is not the quality of supply; its demand from recruiters. Graduate CareerAustralia strategy and policy advisor Bruce Guthrie

The figures are even worse when looking only at new bachelor degree graduates. Among this group, the proportion unable to find full-time work four months after graduating is at its highest since the 1970s. In 2014, only 68 per cent of new bachelor degree graduates were working full-time four months after graduating, compared with 85 per cent in 2008, research from Graduate Careers Australia shows. Like previous generations, Generation Y has been raised with the belief that a good education would lead to a good job. But they're the first generation for which that promise may not hold true, according to Johanna Wyn, director of the University of Melbourne's Youth Research Centre. "It's a global phenomenon. We're going into a phase where work is precarious," she says. "For the first time in history, people who are qualified are struggling to get a foothold ... professionals are now on contracts or doing casual work, whereas becoming a professional of some sort used to mean you'd get a proper job."

In 2011, 26 per cent of 18- to 34-year-olds had a bachelor's degree or higher, compared with only 5 per cent in 1976, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Having a university qualification is more important than ever, but it has never provided less of a guarantee against job insecurity or even unemployment, says University of Melbourne sociologist and senior lecturer Dan Woodman. "For this generation's parents, if you had a bachelor's degree, that was your ticket. You didn't have to worry about graduate employment rates because you were in a very elite minority," he says. "Now, more and more people are seeing one degree as not enough."

Among them is Ms Wenham, who will complete a combined BSc in Pharmacology and Master of Nursing at The University of Sydney over just four years. "The more pieces of paper you have saying 'I have this degree and this degree', the better. I think jobs are going to people who can show they've put in the hard work," she says. The urge to amass degree after degree is understandable, experts say, but it's far from given that it will bring you closer to your dream career. "There is a mistaken view that getting more qualifications will improve your employment prospects. I think many employers value experience over qualifications," Grattan Institute higher education program director Andrew Norton says.

Postgraduate courses, which are mostly full-fee-paying, are significantly more expensive than undergraduate courses, he warns. "You've really got to be confident that it's going to pay off." Unpublished Graduate Careers Australia figures suggest people coming out of postgraduate degrees without previous full-time work experience have very similar employment prospects to bachelor degree graduates, Guthrie says. Gen Ys also seem ambivalent about whether more university is the answer to their woes. Paradoxically, nearly two-thirds of those surveyed in the Future Leaders Index said universities weren't equipping students with enough practical skills for the workplace – even though half said they were considering further study. However, Guthrie says these beliefs are a reaction to the poor jobs market and not a reflection of university teaching. "Universities haven't changed how they teach overnight. The issue is not the quality of supply; it's demand from recruiters," he says.

"I suspect graduates aren't seeing that. They're just thinking they're under-prepared for employment." Besides, the role of universities is to train people to think and understand the world, not just to prepare them for jobs, Professor Wyn says. "In fact, our longitudinal studies show the graduates most likely to be in full-time work by the age of 27 are those who have done an arts degree", she says, probably because they have the skills to "think outside the box". Nevertheless, employers and universities are already forging closer links, she says. It's time policy makers took a seat at the table. "Governments have been talking up the knowledge economy … requiring that people get post-secondary qualifications," she says.