Supply and Demand Balances of Selected College-Level Fields Projected for the SRPB [Southern Regional

Few manpower projects in Southern states have focused on the demand for the output of four-year colleges and universities. Even fewer have attempted to link projections of demand for degree programs to the supply of graduates generated by those programs. Moreover, none have set the state outlook for a particular college-trained skill within a context of the supply-demand balance picture for neighboring states and the South in the aggregate. From a career guidance perspective, if not in an educational planning context, such a comprehensive evaluation is required. It is the intent of this document to present preliminary state-by-state projections of supply-demand balances for a limited selection of degree specialties in the context of similar projections for the Southern region as a whole developed under the same general methods. The projections of degrees by level, by state, and by field of study are based on the region's share of U.S. degrees according to projections by the U.S. Office of Education (USOE), and the historical distribution of degrees in the region by degree levels relative to the U.S. historical distribution. All graduates at all degree levels have been classified into 20 major fields of study. Generally the data reflected limited opportunities for Southern college graduates in the traditional field of work (conventional projection) but show openings in the extended list of occupations (comprehensive projection) to be more likely during the 1970,s. (Author/KE) * Documents acquired by ERIC include many informal unpublishe