We don't need more STEM graduates.

Studies estimates that nearly two-thirds of the STEM job openings in the United States, or about 180 000 jobs per year, will require bachelor’s degrees. Now, if you apply the Commerce Department’s definition of STEM to the NSF’s annual count of science and engineering bachelor’s degrees, that means about 252 000 STEM graduates emerged in 2009. So even if all the STEM openings were entry-level positions and even if only new STEM bachelor’s holders could compete for them, that still leaves 70 000 graduates unable to get a job in their chosen field.

What’s perhaps most perplexing about the claim of a STEM worker shortage is that many studies have directly contradicted it, including reports from Duke University, the Rochester Institute of Technology, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the Rand Corp. A 2004 Rand study, for example, stated that there was no evidence “that such shortages have existed at least since 1990, nor that they are on the horizon.”

Source.

Not all STEM graduates are cut out to work in their majors to begin with so the chances that they will be able to get a job in their field of study or that they will pursue one to begin with are slim. They can be effectively considered and looked at from a non-STEM perspective as a part of the workforce. In addition, I noticed from personal experience that graduates of hard majors, specially engineering, are capable of working in a whole lot of other fields other than their own. STEM majors are hard and tremendously challenging. When compared to many other majors, STEM majors make them look so trivial and laughable. Having myself studied engineering, these hard science majors will challenge you in ways you can never imagine. The difficulty and the challenge the courses and projects bring you and the extent of commitment, resources and self-reliance are like no other. The whole experience will definitely change you and your perspective of self ability and capability.

Forgot to mention that engineering and technology majors' graduates are seriously capable of generating their own income whether by opening their own businesses, freelancing or by using the massive potentials of e-commerce. You have no idea how much money many computer science and engineering graduates make from freelancing and selling their own software products and services in online stores.

So the point is, I'm not sure you can ever go completely wrong with a STEM major provided that you're capable of surviving it. That and STEM graduates can never be a burden on the workforce, even in their least favorable conditions.

Why are you so dead set against the idea of post high school education, tc?

Leaning towards troll.

Would fit

That or trying to justify his own life choices.

Too many threads for that, IMO. (unless really, really bitter)

The less education people have, the easier it is to sway them and fool them. He is aiming for the white house or some other high up position. :P

What we really need is more film graduates.

Because is a scam designed to fool young people into life-crippling debt.

Troll harder.

Your right. They should all major in philosophy and english so that we have plenty of employees for all of the new starbucks of america

lmao this guy's posting history

obvious troll

uh, what about all the STEM majors that go into graduate education?

Something like 70% of college grads don't get a job or career in their chosen field, so 70% of STEM grads getting STEM jobs is actually pretty good.

It is certainly a strange gear to grind.

Not a fan of his anti-education in general attitude, but I do find the dogmatic push for STEM funding at most universities to be rather bothersome.

@loco145: 250k graduates, 180k openings. So basically 2 out of every 3 graduates that apply for a job will get one right off the bat. Those are pretty damn good odds compared to most fields, where there may be 50 to 200 people applying for one opening.

None addresses the points presented on the well researched paper posted, yet I'm the troll...

You copy/pasted 2 paras from an article you found on net, haven't included included any of your original thoughts or views into it and you just expect people to start a discussion for your entertainment

But I will say this, great thing about statistics is that you can use them any way you want and present your own view and expect people to follow your view cuz 'cold hard facts'. Here you might argue that we don't need anymore STEM graduates as we are good for another decade and people are better off in other fields because look at stats of STEM graduates who couldn't find job in their own field. But before also look at the overall unemployment figures and how much success students from other streams had better success rates. I mean people aren't idiots after all. Second one might also argue that increased competition may have actually increased efficiency and quality of recruits to industry so much so that it has led to more progress in field.