Several weeks ago the Chronicle of Higher Education published an interesting article about the research of two professors from Rutgers University and Georgetown University into the supposed dearth of scientists and engineers being produced by American universities.

Everywhere you turn in the higher education world, you hear policy makers trumpeting the importance of producing more STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) graduates.  Indeed Rising Above the Gathering Storm, a significant report issued by the National Academies several years ago, argued that America was on the verge of losing its competitive edge because it was not producing enough STEM graduates and urged national goal-setting.

After reviewing thirty years of educational and labor data, however, the Rutgers and Georgetown researchers have concluded that we’re producing more than enough STEM graduates.  The problem, if there is any, is that fewer than half of STEM graduates work in STEM fields 10 years after they graduate.

I have a hunch this is an important study (I’m not saying it’s correct, just important) that will receive little additional attention as states like West Virginia charge headlong into STEM graduate program expansion.  I make this observation in part because no one seems to have paid any attention to published data that suggest that West Virginia loses an overwhelming number of its STEM graduates to other states, making West Virginia’s return on its hefty STEM investment very poor.