Letters to the Editor
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It's not that we don't want the education -
First, thanks for posting the reply; having read the article and your initial post I see where confusion could occur. It's good to see journalists share corrections like this, and act in the interests of accuracy.
Second, it's not that we don't want to go to school. I'm sitting on a 182 IQ (5.5 standard deviations from the norm), and graduated summa cum laude, but I'm trapped by medical bills and having to work two jobs to make ends meet. I'd much rather be in graduate school and doing cutting edge research, but instead I'm a long-term contractor. Anyone trying to put themselves through school knows that just one, not-very-large financial blow can put it out of reach for years.
I know that if I'm in this situation, many others are as well.
I teach myself, write, keep up in the literature, and seek work that will allow a return to school, but I don't know if I'll ever be able to study or work at the level for which I long. For that I need money and time, and they're just not available. So like the Godolphin Arabian I pull my cart, and pray something changes that will let me actually enter the race....
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Post grad education already free
I am confused by part of Vivek's comments. He said "We should make graduate education close to free like it is in China" .
At reputable schools engineering and physical science degrees are already effectively free. A decent PhD student is almost always able to find a TA or RA position that covers tuition and subsistence level room and board. I am not sure what changes he wants in this area, but the coast of graduate education in a science and engineering hasn't been a reason that I have heard for people dropping. Does he want to do away with RA and TA positions? TA positions, while sometimes slowing the progress toward graduation are useful experiences for PhD student, as well as being a very important part of the big school teaching method. And RA positions often involve paying students to do there thesis research, so they are usually a fine deal for students. (Though I have heard horror stories about some advisors and about variations across fields).
I agree with many of his other recommendation. Post-doc wages and research opportunities can definitely be a problem.
I haven't been able to get into the original report yet (server problems?), so maybe these questions are answered there.
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God bless the science doctoral student
My old roommate was a engineering doctoral student. He finished last year and has moved onto wearing tweed and a bowtie. While he was "American" through through, born here, probably had some distant relatives serving on opposite sides of the civil war, most of his colleague were foreign born, predominantly Chinese and Indian. The fact of the matter is that most American's are unwilling to toil at low wages for unclear financial rewards. Smart undergraduate engineers can easily go on to make a lot more money by not pursuing further academics. They mostly end up in business school in a couple years. Why pursue at least 4 years of grueling graduate studies for doctoral when you can do two years of wining and dining at top a business school and make a lot more money? The students who truly do finish their doctoral work like my old roommate do it for academic passion not financial reward. The problem is not the low pay or cost of study, but the easy money in more lucrative fields such as banking, hedge funds, private equity, and consulting. Once we stop valuing that kind of work, maybe we can start valuing other types of work.
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No Engineer Shortage
If companies were willing to offer jobs where employees could develop skills, then it would be a whole lot easier. But, if 10 plus years of experience is required with a MS, then go figure that you won't find many qualified applicants. My MS has not gotten my foot into many doors over the last 5 years.
As for grad school, when the emphasis is on "publish or die" and you have to put up with a bunch of crap with no guarantee that you can find work, it hardly seems worth the effort to get a PhD. At best, my MS will shave off a year of my apprenticeship towards being licensed as a Professional Engineer. So, the return on investment is quite low.
I am irritated when I see people like Bill Gates lament the number of qualified people available. The people are out there, but companies do not wish to pay for the qualified people with lots of experience or give newly minted grads an opportunity to learn. It is a Catch-22.
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Agreed
I agree with everyone's assertions here. There is very little cost benefit to getting a post-bachelor engineering/science/anything other than law, medicine, and business. It's a joke.
The marketplace has spoken - these degrees are worth marginally more than a bachelors. It's frustrating for me too. When the choice came to look at higher education, anything other than an MBA just seemed stupid.
I don't know if there are any good solutions.
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Opportunity Costs of graduate school
When I entered grad school 5 years ago, I was 'making' more than my undergrad roommates who were still struggling to find jobs and get started. Now that they've been working those 5 years, they have houses and cars and 'stuff,' while I'm still toiling at the same wage and splitting a room to pay the bills. Like one poster said, I do this out of academic passion and a love of learning, but if I was in it for the money, lord knows I would have headed off for the private sector long ago.
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The problem is Bill Gates and his fellow CEO's not Schools
After 25 years as an engineer I quit, went to law school and am going to graduate this May. Corporate greed has ruined what once was a good career choice, by overworking, outsourcing and otherwise suppressing engineering labor costs to chase unrealistic profit margins. Know Bill wants help from the government to help him with the problem he helped create. Worse, his solution, importing talent, will only further the problem by further diluting the bargaining power of homegrown talent.
Corporations must be forced to stop externalizing their labor costs on the taxpayer. They must spend their own money to redevelop engineering staffs, thereby using market forces to attract both new and experienced technical personal. Until they resist the MBA influenced, short sighted, goals of reduced labor costs our country can not maintain its technical supremcy.