US lags behind even Portugal, Turkey, Spain in STEM Grads

Wildwood11 · February 12, 2012, 12:21pm

If there is no shortage then why are doctoral programs in these fields disproportionately filled with foreigners? And why do foreigners appear frequently in top positions of high-tech companies? Maybe it’s more a question of quality than quantity. But if the U.S. were producing enough high-quality STEM majors, I would think the first place it would be apparent is in funded graduate programs.

mini · February 12, 2012, 12:23pm

Because the schools overbuilt doctoral programs, and the professors need cheap labor to carry out their research.

“And why do foreigners appear frequently in top positions of high-tech companies?”

Maybe because they’re smarter?

Vladenschlutte · February 12, 2012, 12:27pm

Disproportionately? The US has 5% of the world population? You think Americans make up less than 5% of US STEM doctoral programs? If so you are way off, that’s not true at all.

NJSue · February 12, 2012, 12:36pm

How well does the number of slots in doctoral programs correspond to the number of domestic employment opportunities? In many fields there is no correlation between number of doctoral students and actual post-grad jobs. I know that science is different from other areas because it is funded differently, but how good, really, is the articulation between academic science and the job market?

gravenewworld · February 12, 2012, 12:42pm

There isn’t a shortage of STEM grads AT ALL. This is a common myth, supported mainly by US universities, companies that make millions off of brining foreigners that need visas, and companies that want to pay people in science extremely low wages. There’s a reason why people are now turning away from STEM fields–it’s because there is complete oversaturation, absolutley horrible job prospects in many types of STEM fields, and low pay. Companies in the US treat STEM grads like sh$@, so why should people train to do STEM if the wages will be low, the course work difficult, and for no job stability? Go ahead and look out there for many STEM type jobs. You will see that many jobs in science are never ending waves of temp position after temp position after temp position for which wages are low, there are little or no health care benefits, and absolutely no retirement benefits. I’ve worked in STEM for 6 years now, and my wages and job prospects have gone no where but down, down, down.

Academia is no better either. There are simply way, way, way too many graduates and not enough faculty positions for people with PhDs–that’s why it isn’t uncommon to see people doing low paying post doc positions until they are almost 40 years old these days. Also, why do you think many people at universities in STEM are foreigners? It’s because the wages are low and the job prospects are terrible. The US has always relied on foreign immigrants to do large amounts of work for low wages, STEM labor these days in US universities is akin to the low paying labor needed to work in restaurants, pick food on farms, and clean hotel rooms.

Before anyone whines about lack of STEM graduates they should read this award winning article that exposes the truth behind STEM and the terrible job prospects for American students that study many STEM fields:

[Is</a> America’s Science Education Gap Caused By Career Planning Fears? - Miller-McCune](<a href=“miller-mccune.com”>miller-mccune.com)

gravenewworld · February 12, 2012, 2:49pm

Here’s also a good reply on the issue I read:

I have to say I think the job statistics for science majors are a bit of a scam. Not that they’re lying… they’re just very, very deceptive.

For example, the BLS says that the median wage for physicists is $102,890. Wow, right??? Good money! But you have to look reaaaaally carefully to find this little nugget:

<pre><code>Physicists and astronomers held about 17,100 jobs in 2008. Physicists accounted for about 15,600 of these, while astronomers accounted for only about 1,500 jobs. In addition, there were about 15,500 physicists employed in faculty positions; these workers are covered in more detail in the statement on teacherspostsecondary elsewhere in the Handbook.
</code></pre>

So they’re not counting professors, post-docs, or graduate students as physicists, even though those people are the ones doing the vast majority of physics research. Heck, even Albert Einstein wouldn’t count as a physicist according to that measure. They are taking data from a very narrow subsection of physicists, and reporting that as if it’s representative.

Or perhaps we look at surveys from the AIP. They tell us that people with either a bachelor’s degree or a PhD in physics have only a 4% unemployment rate, and that 71% of people with a bachelors degree get a job in a STEM field with a good salary. In this economy, that’s fantastic! Economists would say that we’re at full employment, so basically everyone who wants a job can find one quickly. There should not be any long-term unemployment except for very rare cases.

Except, again, we have to look at the fine print. Reading the survey methodology reveals that only 40% of new physics grads actually answered their survey. They do have data for 54% of new PhDs, but 31% of that came from their advisors rather than the PhDs themselves. Of course 40% is fine if this were a truly random sample… but it isn’t. The people who voluntarily self-report will tend to be the people who have jobs that they can be proud of. I know that, for me, I didn’t answer my university’s career survey because I was too ashamed of being unemployed.

The best numbers I think come from Andrew Sum. He used US census data, which is important because it tracks everyone. He calculated that only 67.9% of new physical science grads are employed (!) 11.4% were employed in jobs that don’t require any college degree at all. The median wage was only $14,607 or $20,687 depending on if you had a job that required a degree, which is frankly pathetic. Note that physical science majors earn less than almost all other fields of study, including humanities.

I know I wouldn’t have bothered to work through a physics degree if I’d been told employment data like that. Should have just learned programming instead. But of course the schools want to make sure they have a plentiful supply of new graduate students available to do all the research and teaching work for a paltry salary…

Looking at these misleading statistics, I can’t help but be reminded of what’s happening at law schools. Law students take on an outrageous amount of debt, because they think that once they graduate they’ll make a high salary as a lawyer. It turns out that the “official” statistics from law schools are utterly worthless. Some law school graduates end up swamped with debt that they are literally committing suicide. The law schools hide this with the same kind of basic methodology mistakes that the AIP does, like relying on self-reported data with a very low response rate. (Ironically, it’s my training in science that teaches me to identify what a huge error that is! I wouldn’t have understood when I was a freshman how important a random sample is.)

If you want to encourage students to study science, make sure you’re giving them accurate and clear information that won’t mislead them. If the only defense is “caveat emptor- they should have done better research before they commited to this!” well that’s pretty much the universal defense of scammers.

Skyhook · February 12, 2012, 3:09pm

Outside of academia, where ARE physicists who have good jobs employed?

Ghostt · February 12, 2012, 5:55pm

I’m guessing they provide a level of expertise that even industrial engineers don’t have when it comes to building stuff like aircraft, spacecraft, machinery, bridges and other big constructions, cars, antennae, etc. Other than that, I’m not really sure. It’s definitely possible to put a math or physics degree to use as an analysit, programmer, financial engineer, etc., but I don’t know about jobs that are strictly about physics.

ucbalumnus · February 12, 2012, 8:49pm

Physics graduates do seem to find their way into the subset of finance, computer software, and engineering (non-PE) jobs where ability to think logically and quantitatively is of high importance, but knowledge of specific subject matter is less so, or can be self-educated on the job. Math graduates also find their way into those finance and computer software jobs (and perhaps industrial engineering jobs). Actual physics jobs are not sufficient to absorb all of the physics graduates, even though physics is not an especially popular major.

Chemistry and biology graduates are not similarly recruited into these types of jobs. Note that biology is the most popular STEM major, and one with poor job and career prospects.

Of course, it does seem that most people posting in this thread are still writing with the assumption that all STEM majors are similar in job and career prospects and labor market conditions. In reality, there is considerable variation between different STEM majors in these respects, and economic and industry cycles induce other variations.

Dad_of_3 · February 12, 2012, 9:04pm

I suspect many biology majors are like D1 who look at this as a stepping stone to med school, and if, like her and many of her inner circle of bio majors, they succeed, it’s no longer a poor-job/career choice.

DocT · February 12, 2012, 9:20pm

"Outside of academia, where ARE physicists who have good jobs employed? "

Mainly in industry. My firm hired tons of physicists including me. Now there are apparently tons in hedge funds. I would say that for those in industry, the $102,000 number sounds pretty accurate if you have a Ph.D. - lots make much more money than that. Without a Ph.D., the chances for employment are significantly less - at least in the past.

morrismm · February 12, 2012, 9:56pm

I sincerely hope these entries were sarcasm, humor, whatever, not serious. Geeky, dorky? Seriously??

I ask my students if the world is getting less technical, less dependent on computers, less complicated? No?

So if we are not preparing our students for this future, we are going to fail. We can’t sit back on our past superiority and expect it to pass to the future. We have to earn the future.

China, India and Korea are trying to take over the super economic power positions of the future.

ucbalumnus · February 12, 2012, 11:11pm

Majoring in biology is not required to do pre-med (although about half of those who reach the stage of taking the MCAT are biology majors), and most pre-meds do not get into any medical school (only about 44% of MCAT takers go to medical school, but many pre-meds abandon the idea before reaching the stage of taking the MCAT after a few B or C grades, realizing that such grades essentially mean no chance of acceptance).

gravenewworld · February 13, 2012, 9:47am

What’s the point of studying a quantitative STEM field if we are just going to employ those students to do financial work? You can major in finance and supplement with a few math and statistics courses to do that. The fact of the matter remains that there is complete oversaturation of STEM degrees with terrible job prospects. Universities that want cheap under paid post doc labor to produce publications and companies that want cheap and disposable temporary science staff are the one clamoring for “more STEM” grads, but why should students study STEM (for those that will actually stay in STEM) for terrible job prospects, little job security, and low pay? If society continues to value marketing, finance, accounting, and advertising more than studies that will produce innovative technology and life saving medicines, fine. Don’t be surprised when our students jump ship and we bring in tons of foreign labor to slave away for low wages years and years on end with little job security. How many people here have actually worked in STEM (ok engineers have it better)? The job prospects within STEM for physics, chemistry, biology, biochemistry, and a whole host of other fields is absolutely terrible . Engineering isn’t immune either. Civil and chemical engineers have been having a harder time too. I’m so sick of having my pay check diminishing over time with more experience working in STEM. I make less now than I did straight out of college, I’m literally in grad school right now because I could get stable access to health care for the next 5 years. There’s nothing but a sea of temp jobs out there for STEM workers which makes it impossible to save for retirement, own a home, or start a family because you may have to move around for a new job every 6 months. Somebody should tell employers to actually start providing stable career paths, instead of using wave after wave of permatemps, if this country really wants people to become interested in doing innovative STEM work.

Hunt · February 13, 2012, 10:57am

If there really was a shortage of STEM graduates, then the market would value them more, and then people wouldbe more likely to pursue those fields.

Pizzagirl · February 13, 2012, 11:02am

Exactly, Hunt. Til then, it’s all crying wolf.

IJustDrive · February 13, 2012, 11:06am

The real problem is the term STEM. We have WAY too many biology grads. We have not enough computer science grads. The market IS valuing CS grads. They are universally graduating with high paying jobs, and industry panels are telling CS departments that they aren’t producing enough graduates. Not all STEM fields are created equally.

Hunt · February 13, 2012, 11:43am

Are there students who would like to be studying computer science, but aren’t doing so? Who are they?

ucbalumnus · February 13, 2012, 12:02pm

Probably those who attended K-12 schools with poor math teaching that left them uninterested or too far behind in math to be able to handle any math-intensive subject. It is just not so obvious when students drop out of K-12, or graduate with poor knowledge of and lack of interest in what should have been taught in K-12.

Of course, this is not unique to computer science or math intensive subjects – poor reading and writing teaching in K-12 wastes potential talent with respect to many other subjects.

Hunt · February 13, 2012, 12:07pm

This is what I don’t quite get about this argument–is math/science education in K-12 in the US proportionately worse than education in other subjects? I’m skeptical about that. I suspect that there may be cultural factors that help determine what subjects kids pursue that differ from country to country, and that may explain a lot of this.
I’d also be interested to know how the US compares to other countries in terms of what percentage of college graduates find employment in their field of study.

US lags behind even Portugal, Turkey, Spain in STEM Grads

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