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4 Drivers of the Recent Increase in Enrollments in Computing
Pages 67-90

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From page 67...
... As with any academic discipline, students' enrollment decisions are informed by a variety of factors, including planned career path, availability of jobs, salary expectations, intellectual interest, appeal of specific degree programs and courses within an institution, and other social or personal factors. In order to shed light on the specific drivers underlying the current growth and how these factors may affect future enrollments, this chapter examines the labor market in computing and discusses the changing role of computing in the economy, in higher education, and in society at large.
From page 68...
... Accordingly, in the following, several important economic trends and principles that have played a role in past degree production and enrollment trends are discussed in the context of historical data. Current and projected conditions of the CS labor market are discussed in the context of the current wave of growth in CS undergraduate enrollments.
From page 69...
... . 3  Data from the 2015 Current Population Survey of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, using the SOC of 15-1100, corresponding to "computer occupations." Additional SOCs outside the 15- series may also fall under computing occupations, but they were excluded to avoid overestimating the workforce by including less relevant occupational fields.
From page 70...
... While these two data sets look at different but presumably overlapping populations, they should be related in two significant ways. First, some fraction of CIS graduates contribute to the population of young college graduates in computer occupations, with varying time delays between degree production and entering the workforce.
From page 71...
... While both employment and degree production seem to respond to the dot-com bust (the latter with a lag) , no increase in employment in computing occupations among new college graduates is apparent in the years leading up to the recent CS enrollment surge.
From page 72...
... Commissioned Study by the Committee on the Growth of Computer Science Undergraduate Enrollments, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (see Appendix D) ; data from Current Population Survey Merged Outgoing Rotation Groups 1979-2015.
From page 73...
... It is noteworthy that there are historical fluctuations in CS wage trends for young college graduates here as well, though not in recent years. In her white paper Hunt concluded that at least some of the increase in CS degree production since 2008 is in response to something other than wages for computer occupations.
From page 74...
... To do so would require accounting for conditions underlying industry demand as well as factors underlying supply, such as student and parent perceptions of job and earnings opportunities, institutional conditions that affect student interest and the production of degrees and delivery of education leading to computing skills, and federal policies affecting the academic and industrial sectors. These underlying factors, and their relative role in the overall computing labor market, likely change over time.
From page 75...
... These statistics reflect CS degree holders working both in computing occupations and in other occu TABLE 4.1  Main Bachelor's Degree for Those Working as Computer Scientists (2009-2014) Main Bachelor's Degree Age 23-29 Age 30-39 Foreign 23-39 Computer science 23.9% 22.2% 25.0% Computer engineering 6.9% 5.0% 11.7% Computer and information 6.7% 7.5% 5.9% Electrical engineering 4.4% 4.5% 15.2% Business management and administration 4.3% 5.6% 1.3% Management information 3.1% 4.4% 0.5% Economics 2.6% 1.8% 0.9% Information sciences 2.4% 2.3% 0.7% Finance 2.4% 1.7% 0.5% General business 2.4% 2.9% 2.1% Mathematics 2.3% 2.3% 3.0% Other 38.5% 39.7% 33.3% Number of observations 15,008 26,674 13,167 SOURCE: Data from American Community Survey (ACS)
From page 76...
... In the most recent projections, covering the decade from 2014 to 2024, the BLS predicted that the number of people employed in computing occupations will rise from 3,916,100 to 4,404,700. The addition of nearly half a million computing jobs to the economy corresponds to a growth of 12.5 percent over the decade, compared to an overall projected growth rate of 6.5 percent.
From page 77...
... Beyond the growth of the computing sector itself, analyses of job requirements show that employers now expect new hires to have significant levels of computing expertise, particularly at the high end of the labor market. A recent estimate from Burning Glass Technologies6 estimated that programming skills were important qualifications for nearly half of the job openings in the top quartile of the income distribution in 2015, as shown in Figure 4.7.
From page 78...
... .8 NACE data show wide geographical differences in computer science, with a difference of $14,000 between jobs in the West and the South.9 For several above-average examples, one may look to the average reported starting salaries for CS graduates from Purdue University ($83,730 for 2015 graduates) (Purdue University, 2017)
From page 79...
... institutions throughout the entire history of the field is only 1,313,034.10 The number of employees in computing occupations is therefore ­ pproximately three times larger than the number of bachelor's degrees in a computer science ever produced in the United States. Another way to examine the relationship between employment levels and degree production is to plot the anticipated employment needs -- calculated here by assuming that the projected growth from 2014 to 2024 is distributed equally over the decade -- against the number of degrees produced each year in several STEM fields.
From page 80...
... It is worth noting in passing that computer science also produces a large number of certificates compared to other STEM fields, indicating that there is also a market in industry for these credentials. Understanding the flow of employees both into and out of computing is complicated by the fact that graduates often take positions that would most naturally be categorized as outside their principal area of study.
From page 81...
... ­ ndustry main I tains that they need the ability to hire foreign workers because there are not enough people in the United States with the necessary skills. In their paper commissioned for the committee Bound and Morales report that the percentage of foreigners in the computer science workforce has grown over the last decade, rising from 10.6 percent in 1994 to 26.8 percent in 2015 (Bound and Morales, 2016)
From page 82...
... For example, wealthy technology magnates such as SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk, or Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg -- including in films such as The Social Network -- along with fictional characters on shows such as Silicon Valley and The Big Bang Theory, may create a glamorous or appealing image of computer science professionals among young people. Workforce Demand in Key Areas Another factor that complicates a full understanding of whether the supply of computing expertise is sufficient to meet workforce needs is that demand for particular specialties in computer science varies considerably over time.
From page 83...
... In a report titled Job Market Intelligence: Cybersecurity Jobs 2015, Burning Glass Technologies (2015a) noted that American employers have realized the vital importance of cybersecurity -- but that realization has created a near-term shortage of workers that may require long-term solutions.
From page 84...
... In recent years more than 25 universities -- including Bowling Green State University, Columbia University, Drexel University, Florida State University, Marquette University, Portland State University, Purdue University, Rice University, the University of California at Irvine, University of California at San Diego, the University of Michigan, the University of Rochester, the University of San Francisco, and the University of Vermont -- have created majors specifically titled "data science." Other institutions offer similar courses of study under other names. At Stanford University, for example, the website for the major whose official title is Mathematics and Computational Science begins with a heading that describes the program as "the data science major." At the committee's public workshop in August 2016 several speakers identified machine learning -- particularly in applications that use multilayer ­ eural networks n
From page 85...
... Just as new opportunities are created for graduates with the skills to apply machine-learning strategies to automate the analysis of massive collections of data, opportunities are closing in those fields in which such analysis was formerly conducted by people. FINDING 4: Employment in computing fields has grown steadily since 1975, and the number of jobs in computing occupations far exceeds bache lor's degree production in CS.
From page 86...
... Data science combines computing and statistical methods to identify trends in existing data and generate new knowledge, with significant applications throughout all sectors of the economy, including marketing, retail, finance, business, health care and medicine, agriculture, smart cities, and more. The availability and use of big data sets, combined with computation, simulation, and modeling, has created new academic areas including digital h ­ umanities and computational social sciences.
From page 87...
... Increased Participation in Computing in Primary and Secondary Environments Another potential driver of recent (and possible future) increases in CS undergraduate enrollments at the undergraduate level is increased engagement of students with computing in K-12.
From page 88...
... course, Computer Science Principles (CSP) , developed in part with NSF support, in 2,700 high school classrooms nationwide, "with the goal of creating leaders in computer science fields and attracting and engaging those who are traditionally underrepresented with essential computing tools and multidisciplinary opportunities" (College Board, 2017)
From page 89...
... high schools with technical expertise and support to help build and sustain computer science courses; specifically, the program connects volunteers to teach or support high school introductory or AP computer science courses and instructors.19 Several private-sector technology and engineering companies also have launched initiatives to boost exposure to CS courses and skills. For example, IBM's Pathways in Technology Early College High Schools (P-Tech)


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