Editor’s note: The most valuable employees of any technology company
are the engineers and scientists, which is why everyone in Silicon Valley does whatever they can
to ensure the continuous supply to this talent pool. The size of the talent pool is ultimately
determined by the number of people who graduate from colleges and universities with science,
technology, engineering, or mathematics degrees. The U.S. is graduating fewer and fewer
scientists and engineers, causing concern in many quarters.
While many people agree this is a problem, not everyone agrees on what should be done about
it. Former Intel chairman and CEO Craig Barrett is a strong proponent of
priming the pump with more undergraduate science, engineering, and math students.
Duke/UC-Berkeley professor (and regular TechCrunch columnist) Vivek Wadhwa thinks that better rewards for
people who pursue engineering and science degrees is the right approach. So we asked Barrett and
Wadhwa to debate the issue of how best to fix technology education in the U.S. Their exchange is
below:
Vivek Wadhwa:
Craig Barrett is someone who I hold in the highest regard. Ever since he retired as Intel’s
CEO, Dr. Barrett has made it his life’s mission to improve U.S. competitiveness. He
believes that the way to do this is to teach more math and science. And he believes we need to
graduate more PhDs in science and engineering.
I wholeheartedly support improvements in education and know the value that math and science
skills provide. But the problems I see in U.S. competitiveness aren’t related to the
numbers of engineering PhDs or scientists that we graduate. American companies are shifting R&D
abroad because it makes economic sense for them to be near growth markets, and they can hire
talented workers at a lower cost. It isn’t about deficiencies in American workers or a
weakness
of U.S. math and science education.
We are also graduating enough PhDs in science and engineering. The problem is that the majority
of these graduates are foreign nationals (who are now increasingly returning
home). American’s don’t consider it worthwhile to complete advanced science and
engineering degrees because it doesn’t make financial sense for them to do so. Research by
Harvard economist Richard Freeman showed that
because salaries for scientists and engineers are lower than for other professions, the
investment that students have to make in higher degrees isn’t cost-justified. Doctoral
graduate students typically spend seven to eight years earning a PhD, during which time they are
paid stipends. These stipends are usually less than what a bachelor’s degree-holder makes.
Some students never make up for this financial loss. Foreign students typically have fewer
opportunities and see a U.S. education as their ticket to the U.S. job market and citizenship.
Hence, 60% of U.S. engineering PhD graduates are foreigners.
As this
article from Scientific American discusses, the problems are even worse for graduating
scientists.
...But today, however, few young PhDs can get started on the career for which their graduate
education purportedly trained them, namely, as faculty members in academic research institutions.
Instead, scores of thousands of them spend the years after they earn their doctorates toiling in
low-paying, dead-end postdoctoral “training” appointments (called postdocs) in the
laboratories of professors, where they ostensibly hone skills they would need to start labs of
their own when they become professors. In fact, however, only about 25 percent of those earning
American science PhDs will ever land a faculty job that enables them to apply for the competitive
grants that support academic research. And even fewer—15 percent by some
estimates—will get a post at the kind of research university where the
nation’s significant scientific work takes place.
So, my argument is that if we create the incentives for American children to study math and
science and to complete advanced degrees, the magic will happen. In addition to math and science,
we should teach our children about world culture, geography, and global markets. In the era of
globalization, these subjects are equally important. And while we fix the incentives for
Americans, let’s do all we can to keep the best foreign students who come to the U.S. to
study, here, so they are competing on our side.
Craig Barrett:
Economic competitiveness in the 21st Century will be quite different than in the past. With the
free flow of information, capital, and people, economies will have to look for new comparative
advantages. Most observers of this topic conclude that there are only three things that a country
can do to increase their relative competitiveness and provide for an increased standard of living
for their citizens. Countries have to invest in the education of their work force (smart people),
they have to invest in research and development (smart ideas) and they have to provide the right
environment to let smart people get together with smart ideas and create new products, new
businesses, and new services. The most fundamental of these three issues is education.
Historically the standard of living or per capita income has tracked closely with the level of
education of the work force—as education lets workers add value to what they
do and as the economy grows the standards of living increase.
Looking forward every major economy has identified the general areas that will drive innovation
and economic growth. Japan, the US, and the EU have all listed those technologies (nanotech,
photonics, new materials, micro electronics, alternative energy, biotech, etc) that will be key
for development, productivity improvements, and growth. All of these areas have the common
foundation of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Hence it is
straightforward to conclude that work force expertise in STEM will be a determinant of economic
growth.
If we look at the US for a moment we can make several observations about the education of our
current and future work force.
- US kids on average do poorly in mathematics, science and problem solving when compared to
their OECD peers;
- Fewer US kids choose to major in the hard sciences and engineering each year (most of our
engineering graduate students are in fact foreign nationals).
- The current 25 year old generation will be less well educated (defined by college graduation
rates) than the 45 year old generation
- Most OECD and emerging economy countries are increasing their college (and STEM) graduation
rates
So in contrast to the importance of STEM education for economic performance in the 21st Century
we see the US moving in the opposite direction. Certainly our universities are still top ranked
in the world in STEM but increasingly the graduates of those universities are foreign nationals
who are often choosing to return home to pursue their professional careers. And we are producing
no more STEM graduates than we did decades ago.
If the US is really serious about competing in the 21st Century economy we will have to decide to
compete. This simply means that you have to create the work force (smart people), invest in
R&D (smart ideas) and make sure the environment is attractive to investment in innovation (do
something about tax rates, make it easier to form corporations, provide incentives to invest in
R&D and make capital investments, etc). Otherwise you will see the continuous flight of
capital and jobs to regions of the world where governments have made the environment more
attractive. This is not a simple issue of wage rates—corporations chase after
the best possible work force in areas where the total cost is most attractive and often the total
cost is much more heavily weighted by corporate tax rates and incentives, not wage rates.
STEM education is key for our future. We need a major upgrade in our K-12 education to produce
high school graduates who understand and appreciate STEM.
We need more undergraduates majoring in STEM for the jobs of the 21st Century. And we need more
STEM graduate students to drive those industries that are key to our future. As a measure of how
rapidly things are changing with time, it used to be that many STEM Ph.Ds turned right around and
went after faculty positions in our universities. Today, STEM Ph.Ds are the entry level education
requirements to get into the engineering and research laboratories of the successful tech
corporations in the US, like Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, IBM, etc. It is also certain that not every
STEM graduate is going to pursue a limited career in STEM. STEM education is a great introduction
to many other professions – the basis of STEM education being problem solving
means that this education is a great entry to other jobs. In fact the most common educational
background of the Fortune 500 CEOs is engineering.
So at a time when the rest of the world is gearing up for competition let’s refocus the US
to do the same. That is unless you believe our future is in low value add services or
manufacturing, investment banking, tort lawyers or asphalt ready construction jobs. Somebody has
to create some wealth if you want your economy to grow.
Vivek Wadhwa’s Rebuttal:
Again, I wholeheartedly agree that we need to improve K-12 education and I agree about the
importance of STEM education. The question is, how do you motivate American children to enter
fields like science and engineering that are harder than others to learn, don’t provide the
economic rewards, and that aren’t considered “cool”? We can’t force our
children to do PhDs in math.
As the article from Scientific
American showed, many engineering and science PhDs can’t even get jobs
– in academia or industry. This is after they have worked for years at
ridiculously low wages as researchers or postdocs. Those that do get jobs don’t ever make
up for the financial sacrifice they have made. When American children choose to study science or
engineering, their friends call them geeks or nerds – they are made to feel
inferior. Their Indian and Chinese counterparts are held in high regard by society and end up at
the top of the social ladder. Indian and Chinese engineers and scientists are often national
heroes. Here, our kids idolize football players and rock stars.
We can’t also just tell our children that the nation’s competitiveness and standard
of living depends on them making sacrifice and completing advanced degrees in math and science.
They won’t care. We should improve the K-12 education system as you suggest. Our
corporations should also invest in workforce development – which they
generally don’t. We should also provide tax breaks for research as you say. And we should
fix our university research system (I have written
about the big
problems with this).
The issue I am highlighting is that even if we did all of the good things you suggest, this would
not fix the problem of American children not being motivated to become scientists and engineers.
My top students at the Masters of Engineering Management
Program at Duke University still vie for high-paying investment banking jobs; they
don’t become engineers. It is the same with our top PhDs in math; they become quants at
investment banks. Their talent ends up being used by investment banks to find new ways of bilking
the financial system.
We need to create the excitement about science and engineering at the national level and motivate
our best and brightest to become engineers and scientists. And we need to make it worthwhile
financially for them to help our country stay competitive and to solve the
problems facing our planet. This is as much a marketing problem as it is an investment
problem. An example of a way to fix the marketing problem is what National Academy of Engineering
President, Charles Vest, proposed with the Grand
Challenges for Engineering program. But this is a tiny first step. We need to do a lot more.
Craig Barrett’s Rebuttal:
Let me respectfully disagree with one point Vivek makes and then give some suggestions on how to
overcome his second issue.
First, this is not a financial compensation issue. If it were then every kid who goes to college
would choose to major in engineering because a BS in engineering (almost any subject) commands
the highest salary of any university graduate. Most kids don’t major in engineering because
they don’t have the interest, the aptitude, or they like some other major more. Our young
college graduates do not chase the dollar; they tend to follow their interests. In addition, when
I look at the unemployment statistics, engineers are usually amongst the highest employment
professions in the country. Certainly the percentage of NFL or rock star wannabes or business
administration majors or medieval history majors on unemployment is much higher than that for
engineers. So can we please move away from the simplistic argument that STEM doesn’t pay?
In addition if you look at graduate school and the graduate Ph.D who spends years working as a
Post Doc angling for a teaching position at a prestigious university you simply cannot do an ROI
analysis on his or her investment to land the faculty position and conclude that no one will be a
Post Doc. The individual is chasing that faculty position because that is what they really want
to do. Just like an aspiring actor spends years doing bit parts to finally land the big role. You
know that because the end point, the faculty position, is not the highest paid option for the
Ph.D. He or she can make more money in the private sector and probably have greater resources
(capital facilities and research dollars) to pursue interesting problems. The Post Doc pursues
their interest precisely because that is what they are interested in. As there are many more Post
Docs than faculty positions available we have to conclude that Post Docs are Post Docs because
they want to try to become faculty members and that Post Docs do not represent an inherent
limitation or barrier to people trying to obtain a Ph.D in STEM. The private sector has a strong
appetite for STEM Ph.Ds—just look at the hiring practices of the major
corporations.
The real barrier to pursuing degrees in STEM is that we have almost a perfect filter in place in
K-12. For a student to want to major in STEM in college they have to exit high school with a
strong mathematics background. That means that they need to have a good math teacher in nearly
every grade (in addition to having a good physics, chemistry, and biology teacher). We know that
about 1/3 of all math and science teachers in K-12 are not certified in their subjects and
probably do not do a good job educating and motivating their students. If you assume for a moment
that you need 12 good math teachers in a row to exit high school being proficient in math then
the calculation of the probability of such an event happening is simple: 0.67 raised to the 12th
power shows you what a perfect filter the K-12 system is.
So how about a national effort to get more STEM content majors into K-12 teaching? A few exciting
programs have started in this space (UTeach
out of Texas, Teach for America, the revamp of the
education school at ASU). All we need to do is start recognizing that hiring content experts in
K-12 is more important than hiring someone who has studied education pedagogy for 4 years. Just
imagine how many folks interested in STEM want to take all those School of Education classes to
get their teaching certificate.
On to the point where I want to support Vivek, i.e., the need to get more kids interested in STEM
during K-12. This can happen in the class room with good teachers (can you imagine a PE teacher
doubling as a math teacher inspiring kids to want to pursue math?) and it can happen outside of
the class room. For example I just spent yesterday afternoon in Phoenix at the FIRST Robotics Championship competition—the
energy, the enthusiasm, the application of STEM was fantastic. But only about 15,000 kids
nationwide participate in this competition. Just suppose we had a FIRST team at every school in
the country. Next week I am at the Intel Science
Talent Search (the Nobel equivalent for high school students doing research). The 40
finalists will be doing research better than my Ph.D thesis topic. But only about 1500 kids a
year enter this competition—what if we had 15,000? Or 150,000?
This is where we need to mobilize the public and private sectors to improve. This is where we can
catch the imagination of the next generation and turn them into candidates for those STEM Ph.Ds.
There is sub critical mass working in this area – it just needs to be
expanded. Suppose we organized the top 200 STEM oriented companies in the US and let them work at
the local level to make FIRST robotics, science fairs, and computer club houses really happen
across the US. Then we could overcome the tired arguments that our society doesn’t value
STEM. There is a movement to make this happen right now. The best thing we could all do is throw
our weight behind this effort.
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InformationVivek WadhwaInformation
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Recommandations
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and reject those that you are not interested in
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