TIME magazine's cover article "Is America flunking science?"

sakky
Tue, 14 Feb 2006 03:33:31 +0000

Well, it’s not quite THAT extreme. The engineers still make more than the management grads to start, as you can see on page 14.

http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/graduation05.pdf

However, my point is that the ‘engineering premium’ really isn’t that large. Furthermore, the premium for getting an engineering degree from MIT as opposed to just an average engineering school is not large. The delta is significantl maybe only for EECS. Maybe. And there are certain engineering disciplines like chemical engineering where the MIT grads actually make LESS than the national average.

http://money.cnn.com/2005/04/15/pf/college/starting_salaries/

Is it really then so surprising that American kids aren’t exactly champing at the bit to learn science? People tell those kids that they ought to study more science and math, and the kids are unconsciously thinking: “Why should I? It’s a lot of work for not a lot of benefit, so I’d rather just not do it.” And, sadly, the kids are right. What is really lacking is the lack of willingness to pay. If American business doesn’t want to pay Americans for science and math knowledge, then we shouldn’t be surprised to find that American kids don’t want to study science and math.