Study: U.S. needs fewer, not more, science students

This is a very interesting article I came across that I thought might be of interest to those here. It’s inflammatory headline is a little misleading: the study’s main finding is not that there are too many students in STEM fields but rather that the best and brightest are being lured to other vocations (management, finance, etc.) so that the U.S. as a whole is losing its technical edge.

Thoughts?

http://blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/10/study-argues-us.html#at

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 supply has actually remained steady over the past 30 years, the researchers conclude from an analysis of six longitudinal surveys conducted by the U.S. government from 1972 to 2005. However, the highest-performing students in the pipeline are opting out of science and engineering in greater numbers than in the past, suggesting that the threat to American economic competitiveness comes not from inadequate science training in school and college but from a lack incentives that would make science and technology careers attractive.

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.

This happens, they say, by depressing wages in S&T fields and turning potential science and technology innovators into management professionals and hedge fund managers.

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.

I’d be interested to see what percentage of those who left STEM-related fields went to the financial sector, management, and other locations in both sets of data. Wages may certainly play a factor, but I don’t see that as the only factor.

First thoughts before reading the thread:
I’m not leaving now.
Over my dead body.
They can drag me out kicking and screaming.

Some interesting information in the article.

If we could predict which students would be the next great scientists and mathematicians, we would all be billionaires from the stock market. The whole point of having so many more students studying these fields is because you never know who is going to “get it” until they get it.

Just think of why the Soviets were so great at goofy things like rowing and gymnastics. It’s because they required EVERY kid to participate until they could determine whether the students had the talent and desire to be the best. Then they weeded out the rest and they had the best gymnasts around. While I’m not saying that we should become the Soviet Union (far from it), but my point is that if you start with a talent pool 10 times larger, than you’re 10 times more likely to find good talent. We don’t increase the STEM training because we think everyone can go into that area, it’s because by giving more people exposure, you’re more likely to find the talent and the desire in a place where you may not have expected it.

And, to add something (OK, probably about a penny) to what Chris is saying, not only do we find the best students in the pool, but the ones that don’t go into STEM fields will have some appreciation for what the ones that do have to deal with. It’s never a bad thing to have a general understanding of a subject; you may not be able to do it, but you’ll have a much better chance of understanding what that [insert favorite STEM-type major/career here] working for you is always talking about! Or at least, he won’t have to spend as much time explaining it to you…