Gifted article from the WSJ on job prospects for CS majors. Supply/demand rears its head again.
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Thanks for sharing - great anecdotes from the Cornell and UNC students - and this stood out to me as well - although if the demand were there, it wouldnāt faze me but clearly the demand isnāt necessarily there to absorb all these kids.
āThe number of students in the U.S. majoring in computer and information science has jumped 40% in five years, to more than 600,000 as of 2023. The number of bachelorās degrees conferred in those majors topped 100,000 in 2021, according to the Department of Education, a 140% rise from 10 years earlier.ā
From the articleā¦
āTo be sure, comp-sci majors from top-tier schools can still get jobs.ā
In tough times ātop tierā matters and provides greater optionality.
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Things that may help in current environment:
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- Graduating from a well known/regarded program
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- Graduating with an MS or PhD
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- Graduating with a specialization in ML/AI or data science
In previous years, just having good coding chops was enough. Those years, for now, are gone.
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Iāll add a fourth to your great list:
Being geographically mobile/indifferent.
Unless you need to be near your medical team for dialysis/chemo/etc. it boggles my mind when new grads explain to me their taxonomy of where they will live and where they wouldnāt even consider.
Being mobile has always been true in certain fields- you want to be on-air talent in the broadcasting industry, kids understood that you start in a tiny market and gradually work your way up. You want a curatorial career-- kids knew you were going to launch at the Johnstown PA Historical Society before the Smithsonian or Boston Museum of Fine Arts was going to consider you.
The only change right now is that this reality needs to hit the CS grads. And needs to hit them quickly. I had a ājust graduatedā kid explain to me why his education is a total waste if he canāt start in Austin or SV.
As if Minneapolis, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Wichita, Des Moines are cities without running water or electricity?
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Absolutely. 
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Check, check, and check for DS. His worry: He wonāt get out of the Army fast enough for certain opportunities heās coveting. Our worry: The Army will make him a deal he canāt refuse.
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Oversupply/commodification of certain degrees is one of the reasons we didnāt try to direct our children into specific programs.
We told them to pick majors they were interested in, and work as hard as possible. Being excellent to the best in whatever field is going to give you better prospects than being mediocre to barely adequate in a āhotā field.
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But note that some people might find certain state and local laws and practices to be direct threats to their quality of life in some places (e.g. those relating to abortion and bathroom use).
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I will add that to my list of āgood reasons to avoid a particular stateā. But our country is big enough so that avoiding Tulsa (which I understand) still leaves Worcester or Springfield MA, Duluth and Minneapolis, Urbana and Peoria, Buffalo and Syracuse.
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This strikes me as another news story that tries to make a situation sound as dire as possible to get clicks/views/revenue. Looking at actual employment stats often suggests a very different impression.
For example, the first not particularly selective college with a large sample that came up in a Google search is University of Arkansas. Their most recent class shows the following stats for CS majors soon after graduating. $83k might not sound high for CS, but CS had the highest median salary among all majors at Arkansas. I also expect most Arkansas grads remain in a relatively lower cost of living area, rather than a high cost area like Silicon Valley, which also influences earnings.
CS ā 75% working, 17% continuing education, 8% seeking work, median salary = $83k
All Majors ā 65% working, 26% continuing education, 8% seeking work, median = $61k
If I go back to the class of 2019, before COVID, then the stats were as follows. I donāt see a clear decline. In both years, CS grads seem to have some of the best employment prospects among all Arkansas majors. Checking a number of other large sample size colleges shows a similar type of pattern.
CS --78% working, 6% continuing education, 14% seeking work, median salary (2024 $) = $75k
All Majors ā 62% working, 22% continuing education, 14% seeking work, median (2024 $) = $62k
Looking at the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, they project the number of software developer jobs to grow by ~500k over the next 10 years, which is less than the projected increase in number of CS grads over the same period.
I think a bigger risk is that there will be an economic change not included in the projections. In past history, there have been cycles of US tech being booming and busting. During the latter, there is a sharp decline in both tech jobs and number of CS majors. If another severe tech bust occurs, then a CS major decline will follow. A CS major decline clearly has not happened yet, which is also telling.
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There is a significant lag between employment reduction/declines and college major declines- as you would expect. Kids donāt abruptly switch out of Petroleum engineering to Bio when the energy industry experiences a cutbackā¦ and juniors and seniors really CANāT pivot.
I think your Arkansas example is terrific. Iām going to posit a guess that Arkansas grads are excited to land at Walmart (Bentonville, AK) or any of the Fortune 500 which have their headquarters in Plano, Houston, etc. Thatās whatās needed during a downturn-- go where the jobs are. Regional bank or credit union in Fayetteville? Insurance company in Oklahoma City? Aerospace company in Wichita? May not be the bragging rights of Google- but good, solid ways to launch.
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I suspect that the oversupply of CS grads is largely going to impact those whose thoughts are FAANG (or similar incomes/financial trajectories) or bust. Or those, like this person in the article:
But Rahman knows lots of seniors who interned at big tech companies last summer and didnāt get return offers. With the tech industry appearing less stable than she anticipated, she started looking elsewhere.
āIt made me really stressed out because I know that I have to find a way to support my family,ā she said.
I know there are cultural differences between families, but it is an incredible amount of pressure to expect a 22-year old to support their family. So students may have families that are willing to make incredible sacrifices for their children to attend Cornell (this studentās school) or other Top X schools, but if there is a corresponding expectation to then support the family upon graduation (and in a lifestyle envisioned by FAANG incomes), that is a tremendous burden.
Those of us old enough to remember the busts of various hot, canāt miss fields (such as CS in the early aughts, petroleum engineering in the 80s) know that it is building a strong set of transferable skills and gaining professional experience (in just about any capacity) that will help people to weather the changes in jobs and job markets over time.
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Question about masters degreesā¦ what is driving the demand for masters degrees? Is a masters degree considered a baseline requirement in the tech industry? Or is it just a chance to specialize more deeply in one aspect of CS (like ML or AI)? Or is it a chance to have another internship round? Or all of the above?
Some background ā¦
When my D22 CS major started the internship hunt, she found that most of the internships (at least what she was looking at) were for masters level students. Internships aimed at undergrad seem to be more data analytics than CS.
My N20 (thatās my nephew 
) just graduated with a CS degree from Illinois Tech. At his graduation, bachelors degrees in CS were outnumbered about 3-to-1 by masters degrees.
I was surprised by both of these things. And thatās in part because I recall touring Harvey Mudd in 2021 and our CS tour guide saying ā¦ you shouldnāt pay for a more advanced degree, if you really need one, your employer will pay for it. (Maybe that is part of the prestige/selectivity effect ā ā maybe Harvey Mudd kids arenāt having a problem finding jobs.)
In our sonās case, the Army requires it as a pre-req for advancement in the Cyber branch (not all branches have this requirement). He was on track for a PhD in AI with Army Futures Command at CMU until he was pulled into a special unit last summer. He wanted to run out his commitment teaching at West Point, but it now looks like the Army has other plans for him. Semper Gumby.
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So interesting! Thanks for sharing!
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No.
However, many people in the industry initially came to the US as graduate students, so they may have MA/MS or PhD degrees. Most in technical computing jobs with only BA/BS degrees were US citizens or permanent residents when they were in school.
Of course, some more research focused jobs could prefer graduate degrees.
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A quirk (or design) in our immigration system which favors more education over less!
It would be interesting to hear from others, but my feeling is that as overall employment for CS majors tightens companies can more easily pick MS over CS.
For ML/AI type positions, specifically, that extra experience gained in grad schools (project experience, opportunity to publish papers, etc) is valuable to employers. Also, if you scan job listings for ML/AI you will see lots of requirements for PhD/MS and publications at leading conferences. I think this is generally true for the high visibility ML/AI jobs.
Internships for college freshmen and sophomores have always been the hardest to land and itās becoming even more difficult as companies lower the number of internships they offer.
This is interesting. Could it be that in times of a tight jobs market there is refuge in grad school?
Times change very quickly - 2021 hiring environment very differt from now. IMO.
Interesting that some branches still have it as a pre-req. Post-hiring advancement in most private/public companies are primarily driven by accomplishments within the organization and not necessarily tied to getting an additional degree. At one company Iām very familiar with employees with BS degrees and 4 yrs experience receive same pay as many (not all) PhD new hires.
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And yet some of these states are seeing record number of college applications with huge tech presence and continued job growth.
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