*The headline of this story has been changed, see note at end.
by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee
It's an article of faith: the United States needs more native-born students in science and other technical fields. The National Academies' influential Rising Above the Gathering Storm report in 2006 said the nation should "enlarge the pipeline of students who are prepared to enter college and graduate with a degree in science, engineering, or mathematics" to remain competitive. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce had a similar message on the gap in so-called STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) students a year before. President Barack Obama has pushed for more science teachers and training for the same reason.But a new paper contradicts the notion of a shrinking supply of native-born talent in United States. "Those who advocate increasing the supply of STEM talent should cool their ardor a little bit," says one of its authors, B. Lindsay Lowell, a demographer at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
The researchers—led by Lowell and Harold Salzman, a sociologist at
the Urban Institute and Rutgers University, New Brunswick—argue that boosting the STEM pipeline may end up hurting the United States in the long-term.
The way to promote US competitiveness in STEM fields is to "put more emphasis on the demand side," says Lowell, noting that U.S. colleges and universities produce three times more STEM graduates every year than the number of STEM jobs available. Cranking out even more STEM graduates, he says, does not give corporations any incentive to boost wages for STEM jobs, which would be one way to retain the highest-performing students in STEM.
The surveys analyzed by the researchers tracked students as they graduated from high school and entered college, following up with them 3 and 10 years after they had left college. That gave the researchers a full education and employment profile for three different groups of students: those who graduated college in 1977, 1986 and 1993 respectively.
The researchers found that the percentage of high school students who were enrolled in a STEM program or had earned a STEM degree 5 years after graduation dipped only slightly between 1972 and 2000, from 9.6% to 8.3%. The percentage of those STEM graduates who were working in STEM occupations 3 years after college increased over the period--from 31.5% for the 1977/80 cohort to 45% for the 1997/00 cohort. Similarly, the percentage of STEM graduates who continued to work in STEM occupations 10 years after college rose from 34.8% in the 1977/87 cohort to 43.7% in the 1993/2003 cohort.
That's not the case for the highest performing students, however, as measured by college entrance test scores and college grades. Although the percentage of those in the top quintile who pursued STEM in college climbed from 21% in the 1972/77 cohort to 28.7% in 1992/97, it plunged to 13.8% in 2000/2005. Likewise, the share of the top quintile of STEM graduates still holding STEM jobs 10 years out of college dipped from 44.8% in the 1977/87 cohort to 43.2% in the 1993/03 cohort.
The authors say those findings square with anecdotal evidence of STEM graduates being drawn to careers in management and finance careers starting in the early 1990s. "Maybe the competition rather than being with the East," Salzman says, referring to emerging economic powers like India and China, "is between different sectors of industry; with Wall Street."
The conversation about the STEM gap "hasn't been grounded in a sufficient body of evidence," Salzman says. Michael Teitelbaum of the Sloan Foundation, which funded the study, adds that claims of shortage are "often issued by parties of interest" such as employer associations. In the past, some U.S. businesses have been accused of using the shortage argument to justify outsourcing and hiring of foreign workers.
Susan Traiman of the Business Roundtable criticizes the new study, saying that it gives an illusion of a robust supply because it bundles all STEM fields together. There may be an oversupply in the life sciences and social sciences, she argues, but there is no question that there are shortages in engineering and the physical sciences. The findings "are not going to make us go back and re-examine everything we've been been calling for," she says.
*This story's headline has been changed. The previous headline said that the study argued that the U.S. needs "fewer" science students; the study itself does not argue for fewer science students, though it negates the idea that more science students are needed. Study author B. Lindsay Lowell, in his remarks to ScienceInsider, did suggest, however, that fewer students in the pipeline may help boost salaries and attract higher performing students into STEM jobs.
The assumption throughout this dialogue is that the sole purpose of an undergraduate education is to prepare students for a specific career in our economy.
I do not think that fact that many STEM graduates may pursue careers or advanced education in other disciplines should be regarded as an unbalanced systems failure.
In reality the skills acquired during any undergraduate education are versatile.
Furthermore having more graduates with a foundation in the STEM disciplines may better prepare citizens to deliberate on the highly scientific and technical challenges facing our society now and in the future.
My son earned an electrical engineering degree with a 3.9 GPA. He worked so hard at school thinking it would lead to good job offers. He received two job offers, both in "national defense," not the kind of work he wanted to do. After a year as a defense industry engineer on a cost plus contract (meaning the company was guaranteed a profit based on how much they spent, so the company hired ten people to do one job to increase its profit margin,) he started law school. It was obvious to him that the engineering profession was oversold, the jobs weren't there, and the companies in non-defense industries only wanted internationals so they could pay them less.
One of the strangest things science has been able to do is convince young researchers that these incredibly lengthy graduate degrees and post-docs are the norm. So many students remain tirelessly optimistic through their studies until it is to late to go back on the decision. I am very surprised by the relentless attitude of students, I just wish it had been applied to something more productive.
The overproduction of scientists is very well known established fact. There is nothing new in the article on that. Regrettably, there is no analysis why that has happened either.
Science has been transformed from pursuit of truth by curious individuals into humongous institution that appropriates public money. Those who run this business - by the outdated tradition called "scientists" - need cheap labor to increase their share in the process of appropriation. For that purpose, they renamed scientific work as training and disguise the regular working relations as studding. The result is what we observe - the liquidation of science work as as profession and emerging a pipeline that spits the exhausted human masses into the outside world without any real marketable skills. Very similar to what had happened to the slaves brought to work on sugar plantations.
As a graduate student I do realize these things. I and very few other grad students are taking actions to leave. Some are just laughing at the incredible lack of opportunities and real training in graduate school and just hang out in lab now. It's fairly depressing how little we are actually needed. However, there are just as many students who are tirelessly optimistic. They put their marriages and relationships on the line with lengthy hours and post-docs. They ruin their finances with loans, credit cards and deplete their savings to live somewhat comfortably during their long stay in academia. They'll eventually work all over the U.S. (and maybe world) tirelessly promoting their PhD qualification. A few will make it to more permanent positions in life. But most will barely be able to keep a job for more than 1-2yrs as contract workers.
It's not a life most students want to live. Graduate students that are staying on have engaged in a "Sunk Costs Fallacy" of thought. They will most likely never make up the debt and opportunity costs they have accrued. Society will have wasted it's tax dollars on talent that was never needed, nor should have existed. When I leave, another sucker will take my place, the status quo will prevail.
Over 600,000 science and engineering degrees are granted annually from American universities.(1)
The US produces only 120,000 science and engineering jobs per year (much less lately; the number may now be negative).(2)
That leaves 480,000 graduates per year without jobs in their chosen careers. Add to this over 250,000 H-1B, L-1, and trade visas each year. Half a million Americans are losing their jobs to cheap foreign technical workers every year. Another half million Americans waste their S&E degrees on non-S&E jobs.
SOURCES:
(1) Tabulated by National Science Foundation/Division of Science Resources Statistics (NSF/SRS); data from Department of Education/National Center for Education Statistics: Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System Completions Survey and NSF/SRS: Survey of Earned Doctorates.
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d07/tables/dt07_267.asp
(2) http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2004/02/art5full.pdf page 83
H-1B, L-1, F-1 OPT, and "Free Trade" visas are the Trojan Horse to offshoring of American Jobs.
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/lou.dobbs.tonight/popups/exporting.america/content.html
I do not know why money is being wasted carrying out all of these studies which are all at variance and obviously a waste of time. At any rate, no one is listening. We all know that the Corporate are only interested in foreign cheap labor! In addition, Politicians say one thing in public, and the opposite in private! So, who do you believe?
Fintan Lynch.
http://www.EIAss.com
I'm completing a PhD degree at a Canadian University and can wholeheartedly say that I have no desire whatsoever to stay in science as a career. Before you throw your stones, let me explain my rationale.
The merits of a research career is very appealing to me, but frankly the whole system appears to be suffering from gross mismanagement. It is not the lack of resources but rather poor allocation of people, of money, of not setting research objectives (and of not being required to explain when you miss them), of not really developing great leaders but just waiting for them to appear by chance. Don't even get me started on researchers relentlessly neglecting the people they're leading in their silly pursuits of self-aggrandizement.
In the end, most colleagues I've had the pleasure of knowing really do want to achieve great things in their careers. However, because of the aforementioned reasons I've seen the ambitions of too many be whittled away until only well-educated husks remain to be graduated. For the sake of society, the scientific system needs an overhaul, stat!
The information attributed to Susan Traiman in the last paragraph is misleading. From page 9 of the paper pdf to which you link:
"Each outcome is classified as STEM or non-STEM according to the major occupational codes available on the surveys, in particular: the Life and Physical Sciences, Engineering, Mathematics and Information Technology, and Science and Engineering Technicians.17"
"17 The Social Sciences are excluded from our STEM classification.."
Let me direct your readership to the following:
How Young Engineers and Our Economy Are Betrayed
http://www.creators.com/opinion/phyllis-schlafly/how-young-engineers-and-our-economy-are-betrayed.html
Your readers might also wish to check this website, webpage
www.eiass.com/Articles.htm
There's lots lots of propaganda about Tech/Engineer shortages something I've heard almost all of my career ( almost 40 years!)
Also see discussion of this article on Slashdot.
This paper looks more like a business document than a scientific article. Was it published in a journal? Did anyone peer review it?
An interesting article and a timely issue. It was interesting to note the two comments I saw on the article. I hope the forum reaches some practical solutions for US graduates.
With respect to hiring entry level scientists straight from school. It was my experience (in the engineering field, granted, but which is true no doubt in science) that students straight from school need time to become experienced enough to be of real benefit to the hiring body.
I wonder why it is not seen as practical to hire one less foreign-born scientist and one of the better locally-born and use the opportunity to benefit both the company *and* the graduating students. Very high standards are good but, if the overseas source of scientists dries up, how will they be maintained? If everyone did as I suggest, there would eventually be graduates enough to allow some to return to teaching new students so the present higher standards are reached.
Remember not everyone leaves University at full potential.
I'd like to mention that this article is currently being discussed on the AAAS Science Careers Discussion Forum, which may be of interest to many Science Insider readers. See the forum at http://www.sciencecareers.org/forum.
Dave Jensen, Moderator
This rings true. Whenever I have hired entry level BS, MS, and PhD scientists straight from school, there has been no shortage of applicants...just of ones that met our very high standards. Many foreign born scientists fit the bill, though, and in the end, they become Americans, too.