Enrollments and Degree Production at US CS Departments Drop Further in 2006/2007

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

________________________________________
From: Andrew Burnette [acb () acb net]
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2008 11:28 AM
To: David Farber
Subject: Enrollments and Degree Production at US CS Departments Drop Further in 2006/2007

Dave, for IP if you wish, related to "IT staff shortage a myth"

The articles below are interesting in their reads on trends in
technology as a career choice, first the debate over a talent shortage,
followed by a slowdown in the significant drop of CS majors.

http://it.slashdot.org/it/08/03/10/1454250.shtml

One thing I hear repeatedly among the newer members of the fields
related to CS is a commoditization of IT positions, if not in reality,
at least in how IT employees are valued.  No longer a career, for many,
it's simply another job.

With the collapse of the last of Bell Labs, there are few "shining
examples" of what to aspire to in the industry if you're not holding a
Ph.D.; and the previous allure of stock options just isn't there any
longer.  Pensions, gone. Long term employment, no longer probable.

Best regards,
Andy Burnette

http://www.cra.org/wp/index.php?p=139

Filed under:

     * CRA Taulbee Survey

— Jay Vegso @ 11:50 am

CRA’s Taulbee Survey of Ph.D.-granting Computer Science (CS) and
Computer Engineering departments in North America has been conducted
annually since 1974. Results from the most recent survey will be
provided to participants and CRA members this month. They will be
published on CRA’s website (www.cra.org/statistics/) and in Computing
Research News in May. Due to widespread interest, CRA releases data on
undergraduate degrees early.

This article reports on CS bachelor’s degree enrollments and production
among Ph.D.-granting departments in the United States since the late
1990s. Data are reported in both total numbers and medians per
department since the latter helps limit the effect of variants in
response rates. Results from the Taulbee Survey should be compared with
data produced by the National Science Foundation (NSF), which surveys
all institutions that grant CS degrees (where Taulbee is a survey of the
doctorate-granting departments only).

According to HERI/UCLA, the percentage of incoming undergraduates among
all degree-granting institutions who indicated they would major in CS
declined by 70 percent between fall 2000 and 2005.[See a previous post]
Unsurprisingly, the number of students who declared their major in CS
among the Ph.D.-granting departments surveyed by CRA also fell (Figure
1). After seven years of declines, the number of new CS majors in fall
2007 was half of what it was in fall 2000 (15,958 versus 7,915).
Nevertheless, the number of new majors was flat in 2006 and slightly
increased in 2007. This might indicate that interest is stabilizing.

The decrease in new majors has meant that the number of students
enrolled in CS has fallen for several years (Figure 2). Between
2005/2006 and 2006/2007, enrollments went down 18 percent to 28,675.
Overall, enrollments dropped 49 percent from their height in 2001/2002,
while the median number of students enrolled in each department fell 53
percent since 2000/2001.

These declines have had a significant impact on degree production.
Following several years of increases, the total number of bachelor’s
degrees granted by PhD-granting CS departments fell 43 percent to 8,021
between 2003/2004 and 2006/2007 (Figure 3). The median number of degrees
granted per department declined 39 percent (to 42). The sustained drop
in total enrollments and student interest in CS as a major suggests that
degree production numbers will continue to drop in the next few years.

It is important to note that a steep drop in degree production among CS
departments has happened before. According to NSF, between 1980 and 1986
undergraduate CS production nearly quadrupled to more than 42,000
degrees. This period was followed by a swift decline and leveling off
during the 1990s, with several years in which the number of degrees
granted hovered around 25,000. During the late 1990s, CS degree
production again surged to more than 57,000 in 2004. In light of the
economic downturn and slow job growth during the early 2000s, the
current decline in CS degree production was foreseeable.





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