Srinagar, May 1 -- Every year, thousands of young people in Kashmir walk out of colleges and universities with degrees in their hands and uncertainty in their minds.

Families celebrate graduation moments, distribute sweets, and speak proudly about higher education. A few months later, many of those same graduates sit at home scrolling through job notifications, preparing endlessly for government exams, or wondering why years of education brought so little direction.

This is no longer a temporary employment problem. Kashmir is slowly entering a degree trap where education continues to expand while meaningful opportunities fail to keep pace.

According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey and official government figures, unemployment among...