IIT (in Illinois) overall graduates nearly twice as many master’s degree students as bachelor’s degree students, according to College Navigator - Illinois Institute of Technology . Business there is skewed nearly 10-to-1 in favor of master’s degrees over bachelor’s degrees.
I noticed the masters graduates were heavily international. So that matches your observation above about international students getting masters credentials in the US.
While there is a lag between employment and decline in major, the article doesn’t make it sound like this is s new problem that suddenly occurred for the first time this year. The article instead makes it sounds like CS over supply is a problem that has been ongoing for many years and continues to get worse with each year, yet CS major enrollment continues to increase rapidly each year across the US as a whole.
Arkansas was an arbitrary example. A similar type of pattern occurs at other colleges I checked. Different colleges often show very different outcomes, but when there is a large sample size, I see little decline in outcomes. Another example that is closer to higher cost of living areas is Stevens, whose stats are below. While seeking employment increased from 2% to 5%, it doesn’t appear to be as dire a decline as one might expect from reading the article. In both years, CS was the highest median salary major.
2017 – 71% Employed, 27% Grad School, 2% Seeking Employment, Salary = $101k (2024 $)
Current – – 76% Employed, 19% Grad School, 5% Seeking Employment, Salary = $105k (2024 $)
Looking at the combined stats for ~13,000 new CS graduates across a large number of colleges through the US in the NACE dashboard, the outcomes for most recent available year (2022) were as follows. It looks like CS has one of the best typical employment outcomes among all majors in the US. I realize things have changed in some respects since 2022, but there does not appear to be an oversupply type trend in the available years. The trend is instead that inflation adjusted salaries for new CS grads are getting higher, and % seeking employment remains steady. Perhaps the increased % continuing education from 9% to 16% over the 8 year period is indicative of a future problem developing. Perhaps not.
2014: 74% employed, 9% continuing education, 9% seeking employment, salary = $90k (2024 $)
2018: 75% employed, 11% continuing education, 11% seeking employment, salary = $96k (2024 $)
2022: 72% employed, 16% continuing education, 10% seeking employment, salary = $106k (2024 $)
2022 All Majors – 64% employed, 19% continuing education, 11% seeking employment, salary = $69k (2024 $)
Unlike a good number of other STEM fields, the overwhelming majority of tech majors do not pursue graduate degrees, particularly among CS majors. While a master’s degree can increase opportunities, it is by no means required.
That said, a master’s degree can improve employment prospects, particularly among persons with little work experience. Graduate degrees can be also be near mandatory in some niche fields, which can open the door to working in different types of positions, that some grads may find more enjoyable. For example, I work in an area of tech associated with theory and design. Positions similar to mine typically state that they prefer a PhD in a related engineering field (even better with related PhD dissertation), but in some cases master’s and/or equivalent experience may substitute. Having a master’s would make it easier to start or get on the path to such positions.
I did a double co-terminal master’s program in which I was able to simultaneously work towards a bachelor’s and 2 master’s at the same time. I finished the first 2 degrees in under 4 years, then finished the final degree while working full time. The program was designed to foster tech entrepreneurship by combining a tech master’s with a business related master’s. When starting this program, I wasn’t thinking about employment (maybe I should have been). It was more a combination of finding the classwork interesting and being in an environment where education/learning was highly valued, from my perspective more so than private employment.
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Part of the issue may be focus on “big tech”. My son soon to graduate with combined BS/MS in cybersecurity and has an offer from a Big 4 accounting firm (where he got a return offer) and a big hedge fund complex. Many peers from his school going to work for the military industrial complex (Lockheed, General Dynamics, Northrup). Facebook & Google not so much.
The defense industry is one that is rapidly turning to machine learning for new capabilities so I think that over the next several years they will be major employers of CS graduates with ML background. Recent large contracts for autonomous combat aircraft are just the beginning. There will be opportunities galore in the defense industry for CS grads.
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If you don’t mind sharing … is the Big 4 offer to do cybersecurity consulting? I ask because my D is considering such a position. And I’d love to hear any thoughts on it!
Even among Cornell students, I expect such stories are rare and cherry picked by the author of the article. Cornell has particularly detailed employment stats, which are below. Overall, it looks like a slight decline in employment outcomes since pre-COVID, but far from a dire situation. One noteworthy change is far fewer students worked in SF Bay, and far more worked in NYC. % working for a tech employer also had a significant drop. It would be helpful to know more about the reasons why nearly 1/3 the class chooses to pursue a grad degrees, which is higher than the overwhelming majority of other colleges, including other highly selective ones.
– 2019 –
- 71% employed
- 27% grad school – 79% MS / 18% PhD, 70% continuing at Cornell
- 2% seeking employment
- Median salary = $136k (2024 $), +/-1 SD = $109k to $163k
- 27% in SF Bay, 21% in NYC, 12% in Seattle, 8% in Boston (68% in these 4 cities)
- Employer Sector = 58% Tech, 17% Finance, 12% Retail
- Most common employers = Amazon (7%), Microsoft (7%), Google (7%)
– Current –
- 64% employed
- 31% grad school – 87% MS / 11% PhD, 85% continuing at Cornell
- 4% seeking employment
- Median salary = $135k (2024 $), +/-1 SD = $105k to $165k
- 38% in NYC, 17% in Seattle, 15% in SF Bay, 7% in Boston (77% in these 4 cities)
- Employer Sector = 46% Tech, 22% Finance, 14% Retail
- Most common employers = Amazon (14%), Microsoft (9%), Google (4%)
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Absolutely this.
One of the large defense contractors came after our son a couple of years ago with a significant offer plus a buy-out of his Army contract after he solved a problem in a few days that they had wasted two years and $70 million in government money only to bow out saying it couldn’t be done. He also solved a long-standing problem with desert-terrain robot navigation while he was at West Point. Both were convolutional neural network (AI/ML) solutions. He received a commendation medal for both efforts and has a standing offer from the NSA post-commitment—where many Cyber officers end up as the Army can’t pay what the military cyber complex can.
Our son is somewhat unique in the Army but, in general, there isn’t enough deep AI/ML talent for all the current defense initiatives much less what’s on the board at Army Futures Command, and much of this work is shared with/offloaded to contractors. There is PLENTY of opportunity and compensation for civilian talent willing to work with the war (er, defense) machine.
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Illinois Tech attracts a lot of international students for master’s degrees. They also offer co-terminal master’s degree programs for undergrads, and their top scholarships cover an extra year if needed to complete both degrees. So yes, they award more master’s degrees than bachelor’s.
With that massive increase in numbers of CS degrees awarded over the last few years, supply of new grads is bound to outstrip demand eventually, and the supply of something that takes four years to produce will be slower to adjust than the demand side.
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Combined BS/MS programs also increase the number of master’s students/graduates. My son will graduate with an MS after just 4 years of college and I know of many others like him at both his school and my nephew’s. These programs are relatively easy to get into and often include the same level of financial aid as bachelor’s programs.
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I would think it depends on the job. A lot of ML/AI, particularly with Army research is cutting edge futures research, which generally requires the deeper technical knowledge a PhD confers. Not all jobs are like that.
So on a related note, if CS is in oversupply what are good alternatives for someone with true interest in that area of study? Math and Physics are also of interest to similarly wired kids, but I think it becomes very difficult to do anything with a BS other than teaching route. You have to do PhD and then you’re in research.
At that point, you may as well study what you truly want rather than chase something that may not be of interest as much. A PhD is almost a decade away from this point - a lot can change between now and then.
And then you see this kind of article and it’s a very mixed message (with software engineer on the list of top in demand careers). I will say that anecdotally, I have heard two people say that where a few years ago, companies knocked on their door for jobs, now, they are having to send 100 resumes. It could just be the economy in general though.
I think CS jobs will still fill but not where people think - and those companies will come back and new ones will develop. Remember when Intel was the king pin - they are tiny now, at least market cap wise, relative to an Nvidia and AMD. There will always be new firms popping up.
I can’t imagine all the CS people like CS vs. believe in potential CS riches.
And that’s sad.
Some of these jobs may be great today - but teachers are being let go in droves because covid money is gone.
And frankly, what a terrible job - and I say that knowing it’s wonderful what teachers do for our kids.
But many of our elected officials and the citizens who support them are anti teacher - and don’t give them any respect. Who would want to be in that position?
This from the President of Hillsdale, who is influential with and advising governors in at least several states: Arnn, with Lee seated and listening quietly at his right, describes teachers as being trained “in the dumbest parts of the dumbest colleges in the country.”
Teacher layoffs are growing — and won’t be going away anytime soon | K-12 Dive (k12dive.com)
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I think that’s how market will correct in next few years. Those in it for the money will seek out alternative careers. Those in it for true love of it will stay because they’re not in it for the money. My DS can’t imagine going into health profession or accounting etc. He could see himself teaching but the lack of support in schools and the failing nature of so many schools is a turn off. If he switched from CS, it would probably be towards things like math, physics, statistics or data science. All related areas. I would encourage kids to pursue it if it’s really their passion and not for money. Because there’s no putting the genie back in the bottle - we are a tech society and only becoming more technical.
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Math and physics majors often do find their way into finance and computing, though if your goal is to work in computing, CS is typically a more optimal college major. However, computing in a particular area of application could be helped by course work applicable to that other area.
There are probably many who are generally inclined to math-related subjects (including CS, various engineering areas, math, statistics, physics, quantitative economics and finance), but choose among such subjects those that appear to have better job and career prospects at the time they choose college and major.
I’d suggest reviewing outcomes for students with the majors or career paths that interest you at the colleges that interest you, rather than changing career plans based on website articles or anecdotes, which as you note often include conflicting information.
While there is some overlap; the bulk of CS, math, physics, and physics majors tend to go in to different career paths. Across the full US (NCES), the percentages of new grads continuing education and seeking employment by major are below. Among the listed math-heavy majors, all have a similar portion seeking work around 10%. The trend from previous years does not show an significant increase in portion of CS majors seeking work.
A notable portion of math/physics majors are employed, without having grad degrees, particularly math. At highly selective colleges the most common career paths of math/physics majors who do not pursue grad degrees is often finance and CS/software (software eng positions have tech interviews that require CS knowledge, may have double major/minor). At not as selective colleges, common outcomes often also include things like teaching at the HS level, working in related engineering fields (more so physics), positions emphasizing stats/data/numbers (more so math), and positions that do not have a direct relation to major.
- Computer Sci: 72% Employed ($100k) / 15% Grad School / 10% Seeking Work
- Computer Eng: 73% Employed ($95k) / 15% Grad School / 11% Seeking Work
- Electrical Eng: 70% Employed ($85k) / 17% Grad School / 10% Seeking Work
- Mechanical Eng: 71% Employed ($75k) / 15% Grad School / 10% Seeking Work
- Economics: 68% Employed ($75k) / 18% Grad School / 10% Seeking Work
- Math: 53% Employed ($75k) / 32% Grad School / 10% Seeking Work
- Physics: 39% Employed ($70k) / 45% Grad School / 9% Seeking Work
While all of the majors above have ~10% seeking work, less clear is why those ~10% of grads are seeking work. Some may have not put a strong effort into finding work and have instead focused on other things. Some may do poorly in tech interviews, coding tests, or similar. Some may have an interpersonal issue that is problematic during interviews. Some may have a poor resume, with insufficient work experience, poorly written resume, or other red flags on resume that stand out to employers. Some may be applying to positions that are not a good match with their major/skillset and experience and/or have unrealistic expectations. Some may be applying in ways that are unlikely to lead to hiring, such as submitting a resume to every position that comes up in an online search for particular keywords, and not taking advantage of connections or campus resources. Some may have successfully found a job after graduating, then quickly been laid off or had offer revoked, through no fault of their own . Switching majors often will not fix issues like above.
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That’s interesting. And only a small percentage of those across all these majors went to the most selective schools. My DS will be attending UD - not the most selective or prestigious but a solid program with similar reported outcomes to those listed in your post. And with good undergrad research opportunities. It’s possible he will lean into another major after taking broader classes, and he’ll certainly take employment prospects and trends into consideration, but it’s also important to choose a professional path (not just major) you are passionate about rather than choosing something because it’s the next hot thing — that’s how we got so many CS grads. Just because you like STEM, for instance, I do think a lot of students, mine included, haven’t explored enough prospects/paths for employment before settling on a major. I will be sure to encourage mine to explore many career options before settling in.
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I agree with that, and if your S likes and is good at CS I cant think of a better course of study. Our S finished his college days in 2021 (BSCS and MSCS). He really liked CS and machine learning specifically. Who knows how the market will shake out, but based on what I have learned I would suggest the following for any student that loves CS (and is good at it).
- CS is a broad field, find an area that fascinates you and dive in. Sharpen your skills.
- Broaden your CS education with other studies (business, finance) if you can
- Internships are important but sometimes hard for freshmen and sophomores to land, but research is equally valuable. If you can’t get an internship try to do research in a lab
While I do believe that graduating from certain schools supplies and edge, that edge is minimal at best. CS hiring is actually very open. It’s hard in that code tests are involved (even for those with years of experience). If you are good at what you do, you will be fine.
Actually, many companies look for CS PhD even in non-research areas. In the group that our S works in they only hire MS and PhD. I’m not sure about PhD employment in other engineering fields.
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Thanks for all that insight!