Although this dataset is now a few years old, the results are striking and are still applicable.
John Sargent, Senior Policy Analyst at the Department of Commerce, presented at the CRA Computing Research Summit, February 23, 2004, some statistics on U.S. degree production and annual employment projections for a variety of science and engineering disciplines. Some of this data is summarized in the following table:
The table shows the number of Bachelor's, Master's, and PhD degrees in Engineering, Physical Sciences, Mathematical/Computer Sciences (Statistics and Operations Research!), and Biological/Agricultural Sciences, along with projected demand for people with those degrees.
For example, the estimated annual demand for Engineering degrees is about 3/4 the number of Bachelor's degrees produced each year. Similarly for the Physical Sciences, though the number of degrees produced and the number of job openings in the Physical Sciences is comparatively small.
However - note the large discrepancy between the number of Bachelor's degrees produced and the job demand in the Biological and Agriculatural Sciences! From this data, there seems to be a vast oversupply of Biology degrees being generated. Compare this with the huge shortfall in degrees generated in the Mathematical and Computer Sciences versus the number of jobs available - there are more than four times the number of jobs available in this field than the number of Bachelor's degrees being generated!
So based on this data, it is puzzling why there is not more demand by students for Mathematical Science and Computer Science (and Statistics and Operations Research) degrees.
