Once famous for its endless creativity and ability to invent superior high-technology products, the United States is falling behind the rest of the world. Thanks to the growing globalization of the world's economy and improvements in China, India, and Russia, the U.S. is gradually losing its lead in creating innovative new products and services.
Maybe the other countries are just catching up. Regardless, they're breathing down our necks, and it won't be long before we fall to second place or lower. Our complacent attitude is scaring the daylights out of the U.S.'s high-tech companies as they try to stay in the race. But without the necessary highly educated workforce and the federal funding for R&D to support high-tech growth, we may lose our exalted position.
We've blithely taken our leadership for granted for a long time. Yet it won't be long before we begin to lose our economic clout, affecting every one of us in the U.S. It's time to do something about reversing this decline. Can engineering education help? Yes, but it can only go so far. The real solution is up to all of us.
Not Enough Engineers
The American Electronics Association's 2005 report, "Losing the Competitive Advantage? The Challenge for Science And Technology in the United States," says it all. The U.S. economy, which is the envy of the world in creating new products and technology, is slipping.
Offshoring of manufacturing and outsourcing of technical talent are only symptoms of the bigger picture caused by a dramatically shifting global economy. Various reforms are changing the economies of other countries and making them far more competitive than they were in the past. These countries are adopting and using technology to enhance their economic growth and competitiveness.
On top of that, U.S. federally funded technology R&D has been declining for almost two decades (Fig. 1). The heavy funding of the 20th century was largely responsible for the innovation of the past because it invested in the technologies that advanced our society. And finally, add to this the U.S.'s inability to produce a sufficient number of scientists and engineers who are needed to support future growth. This has led to the increased use of foreign nationals to staff our high-tech companies. Now, current immigration policies are restricting even that resource.
The U.S. needs a Sputink scare that will motivate the nation to act as we did in the late 1950s and early 1960s. President Kennedy's call to put a man on the moon funded a decade of R&D and drove the electronics industry for years after the Apollo project was over.
Our system of higher education is in place and very competent. Our institutions of higher learning are among the best in the world, but they haven't been able to produce a sufficient number of scientists and engineers to meet the needs of the industry (Fig. 2). Enrollments and graduation rates b oth are cyclical. Currently, enrollments and the number of degrees awarded are flat. (For more information, see www.aaes.org.)
The lack of a sufficient number of graduates isn't the fault of the institutions themselves. Clearly, there is a monumental lack of interest in science and technology among our nation's youth. High school kids who have the potential to become great engineers and scientists use lots of high tech. Virtually all of them have PCs, cell phones, music players, TVs, video games, and lots of other gadgets. They love to use them, but they have no interest in designing them. The big question is why. The jobs are there, and they pay exceptionally well.
In the meantime, many high schools and colleges offer summer camps in cooperation with local colleges and universities to demonstrate the exciting nature of engineering. Lecture series and other events like the Edison Project (www.edisonlectureseries.org) seek to motivate middle and high school students to stay in school and pursue careers in a technology field.
The Junior Engineering Technical Society (www.jets.org) has been working for years to increase interest in and awareness of engineering and technology careers with student competitions, assessment tools, career guidance resources, a newsletter, and materials for parents, teachers, and counselors. The Engineering Education Service Center (www.engineeringedu.com) provides consulting, publications, workshops, and presentations for teachers and counselors to promote engineering in grades K-16. These efforts have has some success, but not enough.
AeA president William Archey testified before the House of Representatives Committee on Education and Worksforce in early May. He indicated that while the total number of high-tech jobs today lags behind 1999's total, the number began increasing again in 2004. It then jumped by 61,000 new technology jobs in 2005; the number of jobs would have been even larger if more skilled labor was available. This lack of qualified workers stymies high-tech job growth. Many large companies have thousands of unfilled jobs in the U.S.
"We need to address this critical shortage of homegrown high-skilled talent. America can certainly compete. It has the flexibility, pioneering spirit, and capital to win the race," Archey said. "But to do this, America needs to recognize that future innovation is not predetermined to occur in the United States."
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