The number of science and engineering bachelor’s degrees completed in the United States has climbed 19 percent over the last five years, more than double the 9-percent growth rate for other disciplines, according to studies being released on Tuesday by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
Science and engineering accounted for 32 percent of all bachelor’s degrees in 2013, up from 30 percent in 2009. The researchers used the National Science Foundation’s definitions for science, which include social science and psychology.
“There’s been a lot of policy and economic emphasis on science and engineering as drivers of growth,” said Doug Shapiro, executive director of the Research Center. “I think students are responding to that.”
Some educators, citing the trouble many graduates in those fields have had recently finding jobs, say concerns about shortages are overblown.
Ron Hira, an associate professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology wrote in an email that while the job market in the STEM fields—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—isn’t great, it’s worse in many other fields.
“The conventional wisdom that has been promoted by special interests (universities and industry) is that the STEM labor market is in a shortage situation—even though this is flat-out untrue by any objective measure,” he wrote. “As a result, students and parents are hearing this misinformation and making choices to go into STEM.”
Men and Women, Young and Old
Mr. Shapiro said that during the time it takes to earn a degree, economic projections can change, making it “very hard to chase trends in the labor market.” And he thinks the increase in science and engineering degrees reflects a genuine interest, not just an economic calculation.
The clearinghouse data are based on reports from more than 3,500 participating colleges and universities.
The growth rates for men and women in science and engineering were 20 and 21 percent, respectively. (That differs slightly from the overall reported increase because some students didn’t report their gender, the lead researcher said.)
In both years, women earned 57 percent of all bachelor’s degrees and 50 percent of those in science and engineering disciplines.
Social science and psychology accounted for 61 percent of the science and engineering bachelor’s degrees awarded to women last year and 37 percent of those awarded to men.
The research center also found that women continued to earn more than half of all bachelor’s degrees in the biological and agricultural sciences, social sciences, and psychology.
The studies also looked at the breakdown by age. Rates among students who graduated after age 26 jumped 25 percent, while the growth for younger students was 19 percent. Still, science and engineering continued to be more popular for the younger set, with older students earning just 18 percent of bachelor’s degrees in science and engineering. That’s eight points shy of their representation among all bachelor’s degrees.
When social sciences and psychology are taken out of the mix, the remaining science and engineering disciplines accounted for one in 10 bachelor’s degrees earned by students older than 26 last year and one in five bachelor’s degrees earned by younger students.
