College provides a haven for several million potential workers who are classified as "students" rather than "unemployed," which stabilize the job market. this situation represents what merton would describe as a

this situation represents what merton would describe as a: latent function
latent function is a social strategy to diminish negative catergorization for members of society in order to encourage them to do positive things for  society. According to this function, categorizing someone as 'unemployment' will diminish their self worth and value. So it best to categorized them as 'student' which indicate that he/she is a future employee that currently in training.