Approximately 632,700 graduate students were enrolled in science, engineering, and health (SEH) programs That site uses an extremely broad definition, including social sciences and psychology. Drilling down to the narrower definition of engineering, which is what I commented on, undergrad enrollment peaked in 1985, declining steadily to a bottom in 2001, and increasing since then but still below a 27 year old peak. Using their data on Math and Computer science the closest data to my field, the peak was a little later than I thought 2004, but had fallen 30% by 2008. That is consistent with what I see in my professional journals, and is a direct response to the internet bubble and bust.
40 years ago there were a lot of foreign grad students, although I think there are even more today, but undergrad programs have many more foreigners. Not enough American kids want to enter those fields today. It is true that engineering jobs are increasingly offshored, but I have never met a competent engineer who stayed unemployed very long.
nsf.gov
When I was a kid in the 60's science and engineering were cool and a lot of the smartest went into those fields. Today they want to be lawyers. |
