<p>Talking about “fear of math” and student demand for engineering degrees, ** Table A4.4 ** in one of the OECD report’s [data sheets](<a href=“http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/62/1/48630719.pdf”>http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/62/1/48630719.pdf</a>) actually seems to show that the percentage of students enrolled in engineering/manufacturing degree courses at the tertiary-type A and advanced research levels in the United States in the reference year 2009 was actually the ** lowest ** among all OECD countries. </p>
<p>The table, however, also shows an unusually high percentage of US-based students enrolled in “not known or unspecified” fields, suggesting there may be some problem in data collection as far as the US is concerned. In other words, I can’t tell how reliable those enrollment percentages are.</p>