Into the Eye of the Storm: Assessing the Evidence on Science and Engineering Education, Quality, and Workforce Demand

Several high-level committees have concluded that current domestic and global trends are threatening America’s global science and engineering (S&E) preeminence. Of the challenges discussed, few are thought to be as serious as the purported decline in the supply of high quality students from the beginning to the end of the S&E pipeline—a decline brought about by declining emphasis on math and science education, coupled with a supposed declining interest among domestic students in S&E careers. However, our review of the data fails to find support for those presumptions. Rather, the available data indicate increases in the absolute numbers of secondary school graduates and increases in their math and science performance levels. Domestic and international trends suggest that that U.S. schools show steady improvement in math and science, the U.S. is not at any particular disadvantage compared with most nations, and the supply of S&E-qualified graduates is large and ranks among the best internationally. Further, the number of undergraduates completing S&E studies has grown, and the number of S&E graduates remains high by historical standards.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the meetings of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, October 2006.Originally published by The Urban Institute. Copyright © October 2007 The Urban Institute