Is STEM all it’s cracked up to be?
“Obama strongly supported science, technology, engineering and math — STEM — education. Hosting science fairs at the White House garnered lots of media attention. But other initiatives within the administration’s Educate to Innovate campaign will prove more consequential in improving K-12 education in America. For instance, the 100Kin10 effort aims to train 100,000 new science teachers by 2021, STEM for All encourages active learning for the increasingly diverse student population, and SkillCommons creates open-source online software for education.” (Coopersmith, 2017)
Many politicians push for STEM but do they know the break down of jobs? Surely if we push for certain fields they must have explosive growth.
This is both right and wrong, the need for computer science engineers has exploded. Lumped in with the rest of the STEM majors you would think every science, tech, engineering, and math major would be grabbed by employers the second they graduate.
However the data does not support this. According a study by Rutgers, a nonprofit, independent, economic think tank, found that only one out of two STEM majors got a job in STEM. In fact a RIT professor Rona Hira claimed there are too many STEM graduates trying to get too few jobs. (Rutgers, 2013)
Even so, if their is a shortage wouldn’t wages be rising to entice workers due to competition between companies?
For the IT field, wages have been stagnant for 14 years.
So why is there a big STEM push?
Technology is all around us so when policy makers push STEM it’s easy to believe that we’re at a shortage of STEM graduates without seeing any data. Rather than pushing a broad field we should let students know what jobs are in demand and the different paths you can take there. College is for finding your path.
Coopersmith, J. (2018, September 19). Obama’s legacy in science, technology and innovation. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/obamas-legacy-in-science-technology-and-innovation-70699
New analysis finds no shortage of STEM workers in the United States. (2013, April 23). Retrieved from https://bloustein.rutgers.edu/new-analysis-finds-no-shortage-of-stem-workers-in-the-united-states/
