Best US students opt-out of sci/tech as ranks swell

blogs.sciencemag.org

13 points·teeja··4 comments

I can't help but think that we'd be better off if the "financial engineering" field was was regulated back to a much smaller segment of the economy.

I'm not normally a fan of government intervention but we've wound up requiring massive amounts of it anyway. At least if the top talent was producing tangible things we'd have something more to show for it than an ever larger deficit.

It probably makes sense for the government, or any organization for that matter, to regulate the behavior of other organizations it is responsible to bailout if their behavior gets out of control.

I tend to agree that low interest in science and engineering is driven by a rational response to market conditions - that talented people can do better in other fields.

However, I am confused about one thing...

"Susan Traiman of the Business Roundtable criticizes the new study, saying that it gives an illusion of a robust supply because it bundles all STEM fields together. There may be an oversupply in the life sciences and social sciences, she argues, but there is no question that there are shortages in engineering and the physical sciences"

I'd need to read more about this study. Are social science majors included in the STEM numbers? Are botany majors included? If so, this would weaken the claim that we are overproducing "STEM" workers.

The headline of the article has changed to "Study Suggests U.S. Could Use Fewer, Not More Science Students"

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