<p>"Education is the key to the future: You've heard it a million times, and it's not wrong. Educated people have higher wages and lower unemployment rates, and better educated countries grow faster and innovate more than other countries.</p>
<p>But going to college is not enough. You also have to study the right subjects. And American students are not studying the fields with the greatest economic potential.</p>
<p>Over the past 25 years the total number of students in college has increased by about 50%. But the number of students graduating with degrees in science, technology, engineering and math (the so-called STEM fields) has been flat.</p>
<p>Moreover, many of today's STEM graduates are foreign-born and taking their knowledge and skills back to their native countries. Consider computer technology. In 2009 the U.S. graduated 37,994 students with bachelor's degrees in computer and information science. This is not bad, but we graduated more students with computer science degrees 25 years ago...</p>
<p>...College has been oversold. It has been oversold to students who end up dropping out or graduating with degrees that don't help them very much in the job market. It also has been oversold to the taxpayers, who foot the bill for subsidies that do nothing to encourage innovation and economic growth."</p>
<p>Agree or disagree? HAS college been oversold?</p>
<p>STEM has been oversold for a number of reasons.</p>
<p>STEM jobs not leading to medicine or law used to be plentiful and paid about as well as a union job at a Detroit Auto Plant. Then outsourcing and importing workers began in the 80s (slowly) then ramped up in the 90’s and the carnage began in the 00’s. Kids who had been oversold on the ‘shortage’ found out it was a hoax worthy of Nessie. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, foreign students kept coming, and contrary to popular belief, a LOT of them (myself included) decided to stay here. This is particularly true for grad school students. </p>
<p>The various crashes of the tech industry (New England and California computer industry crashes in the 80’s, the national dot com bust, the outsourcing waves) all but convinced tech aspiring kids to NOT study STEM. </p>
<p>Efficiencies also reduced the need for some workers; in the past, biology/etc students could get a lab job, say, at a pharma Contract Research Organization. Today all this stuff is done using a lot less people…</p>
<p>As waves of employees took their buy-outs of severance and poured it - for better or worse - into small businesses that have little to do with STEM and more to do with franchises and all that glory. Their kids may have gotten the message that STEM does not pay. My own experience as an embedded reporter in the land of the loaded (Thanks Great Aunt Bertha) has shown me that when the guy who is the sales manager for the company that makes those little plastic cups you put condiments at burger places or the regional manager for a ho-hum department store chain make more money than two (combined) engineers with seven STEm degrees between them, that STEM is not the place to be.</p>
<p>: : : : :</p>
<p>And so on…</p>
<p>College itself is not over-rated tho, assuming one goes to college to learn a way of thinking as opposed to learning a trade.</p>
<p>Job-wise, just consider the unemployment for college grads versus high school grads. Or, for that matter, compare the employment earnings of those with just one year of college versus those with just a high school diploma. It isn’t even close. </p>
<p>I do think that STEM is WAY overrated. Engineering salaries top out pretty quickly, and engineers have been subject to layoffs like everyone else. </p>
<p>Jobwise, I do think the future is in “supply chain management”, accounting, and geriatric nursing.</p>
<p>But what the world needs most is more art history and musicology majors.</p>
<p>STEM is not monolithic in terms of job and career prospects, even though people refer to it as a single entity.</p>
<p>Indeed, the most popular STEM major by far, biology, has the worst job and career prospects, not significantly better than humanities or social studies majors.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the STEM majors with the most math, which tend to have the lowest enrollments, have the best job and career prospects, but (like most other jobs) can be very regional (in terms of opportunities, quality of jobs, and pay levels) and very subject to industry and general economic cycles.</p>
<p>With the recession and other recent economic problems in our country, the job market is very different, and it might seem, from that short-term perspective, that college is not worthwhile, since graduates are having trouble finding jobs. This will change.</p>
<p>However, the always surprisingly low graduation rates seem to indicate that college is not fro everyone, but everyone is being told, over and over again, from a young age, that college is the only route to success.</p>
<p>I do think that needs to change, regardless of the economy’s condition.</p>
<p>There are still some jobs that can be learned “on the job” or through apprenticeships, and community colleges and other training programs can train students for certain jobs in two years, or less. In fact, I know several college grads who are now going to community college after getting their bachelor’s, for more targeted vocational training.</p>
<p>And college should not be strictly vocational either. Students should be able to spend those 4 (or more) years studying what interests them, and building skills like critical reading, writing, and research, which are worthwhile even without an immediate career goal.</p>
<p>Engineering/math/physics/comp.sci. have the best job prospects with a bachelors/masters. STEM isn’t magical, but it’s better than liberal arts. Have a high GPA from a good school, do internships, and you can get jobs in tough industries. I know a guy who got a job in IB in the middle of the recession as a fresh grad who was top of his class at Princeton.</p>
<p>Math is a synonym for ‘problem solving’… So, by definition, a math major creature should have McGyver powers or something. That is not true, of course, but the perception is hard to overcome.</p>
<p>What are the outlooks for college STEM professors? I assume will be on the rise as a way to keep up with more and more students going into college.</p>
<p>Getting a tenure-track or tenured faculty position is extremely difficult in any subject. PhDs in some (not all) STEM fields do have decent non-academic research job opportunities; some others move into other fields (more so the math-heavy ones, who get recruited into finance and computer software).</p>
<p>There’s a reason WHY people shy away from STEM fields in this country–it’s because STEM jobs pay garbage wages for the vast majority of jobs that you’ll find with very, very little job stability. </p>
<p>[Is</a> America’s Science Education Gap Caused By Career Planning Fears? - Miller-McCune](<a href=“miller-mccune.com”>miller-mccune.com)</p>
<p>Regarding the STEM emphasis…even in more seemingly “practical” majors like engineering/CS is not necessarily the gravy train it is assumed to be. </p>
<p>I personally know of several former engineering/CS majors who are either underemployed, employed outside their field, or long-term unemployed. Some include A/-A grads from top engineering/CS schools like MIT, CMU, Cornell, etc. </p>
<p>Moreover, if you’re going to pursue those fields…the ones who do well tend to not only have a genuine passion for the field and a willingness to work hard, but also make it a point to emphasize learning theory in college while learning/figuring out the applications on their own time or in co-curricular activities. </p>
<p>One CS major friend who works for one of the big tech companies said far too many CS majors treat college solely as a vocational training institute and thus, end up having a very weak foundation when the work becomes much more than being a “code monkey”.</p>
<p>Depending on local markets, it’s tough to pinpoint many professions WITH job stability and security that pay “good” wages. Teaching is said to be underpaid and thankless. Many other fields as well, including STEM, business and others. Even nursing and other healthcare professions that are supposed to be in high demand can be both short-staffed AND not hiring new grads or even hiring anyone. It’s a paradox but is occuring in our state and probably other locations as well. Even with the nursing shortage, recently in HI, many very experienced top nurses were laid off as being too expensive in a restructuring program to shave costs. </p>
<p>Things are challenging and the best we can all do is to keep reinventing ourselves and keeping ourselves relevant to the job market we exist in, with skills that are needed and applicable (rather than totally theoretical).</p>
<p>All I know is my husbands firm would love to hire hard-working American born math/computer people right out of college, he can’t find them. If they had a personality and management skills that would make him ecstatic! Instead he’s hiring those on a work visa where they don’t speak English very well and head back to their home country within five years. He’s looking for a few hundred new employees, not just one or two, and he’s not alone with this problem.</p>
<p>“compare the employment earnings of those with just one year of college versus those with just a high school diploma”</p>
<p>mini, serious question – do you think it’s college that makes the difference for these folks? Are the higher earnings attributable to what they learn in that one year/employers seeking people with college credits? Or is it because the sort of people who want to and are able to complete a year toward a degree (higher literacy, healthier, better family support, etc.) make better employees who are more likely to hang onto their jobs and get promoted?</p>
<p>I don’t know the answer, but my guess is that it’s all of the above.</p>
<p>Have been posting and saying his for quite some time…College IS oversold to some young adults…Many attend lousy schools,take on debt, and likley don’t graduate…they would have been better served entering the job market directly from HS…The problem is many jobs that could be ‘learned’ from experience now ‘require’ a college degree…</p>
<p>“mini, serious question – do you think it’s college that makes the difference for these folks? Are the higher earnings attributable to what they learn in that one year/employers seeking people with college credits? Or is it because the sort of people who want to and are able to complete a year toward a degree (higher literacy, healthier, better family support, etc.) make better employees who are more likely to hang onto their jobs and get promoted?”</p>
<p>Like all of education in the U.S., college acts as a social sorting mechanism (perhaps even more so than providing anything in the way of usable learning). Certainly, it isn’t what they learned in the classroom in one year, if that’s what you mean. But we do know that in terms of earning power, that one year is “worth more” (over what high school grads earn) than a degree itself. I expect it has something to do with aspirations, more than anything.</p>
<p>Actually, the elephant in the room is that a lot of STEM majors from the best programs aren’t actually doing anything in STEM. They’re taking finance and consulting jobs, or starting their own ventures. The former are considerably more lucrative than many actual engineering industry jobs (or in more appealing locations) and the latter are much riskier but have potential big rewards (and also considerably autonomy).</p>