And here is another article on this, from 2009:
Want to know why people weren't going into math, computers or engineer, well there are reasons:
http://www.epi.org/publication/college_graduates_supply_and_demand/
Many of those who see a skills crisis in the American economy, attributable to inadequate education, confuse the fastest growing job categories with the job categories having the largest openings. It is true that many (though not all) of the fastest growing categories require post-secondary education, but this fast growth starts from relatively small bases, so does not generate many new jobs for college graduates.
Others point to the gap in wages between college and high school graduates, a gap that at some (but not all) times during recent decades has grown, and conclude that this reflects a supply-demand imbalance. In reality, during much of the last 40 years, the wages of college-educated workers in science, technology, engineering and math have been stagnant or growing very slowly. The giant wage gains of college graduates in some recent years are attributable to big boosts in compensation of managers and sales workers (for example, in Wall Street and similar finance occupations). It is hard to take seriously a claim that the giant bonuses paid to finance workers in the last decade are indicative of a nationwide shortage of college graduates.
In actuality, the demand for college graduates has slowed considerably since the 1980s, even at times when the college-high school wage premium was growing.
My colleague at the Economic Policy Institute, Lawrence Mishel, and I have, in previous work, noted that productivity growth in the American economy has been extraordinary until the recent economic crisis, especially in comparison to that of other industrialized countries. If the American workforce did not have sufficient skills to use the most advanced available technology, such productivity growth could not have been possible.
Much of our education policy in recent years has been driven by the inaccurate belief that if only all students could qualify for post-secondary education and then become “attractive job candidates,” all youth would then obtain well-compensated jobs that took advantage of these qualifications.
But our true challenge is quite different. When this recession is over, it will still be the case that attractive candidates for jobs requiring a college education will not be in short supply. And if we succeed in preparing more students for college, and supporting them as they complete it, an economic surplus of college graduates will grow. With hourly compensation for college graduates flat from 2002 to 2008, this can only mean that pay will start declining. It is already the case that new college graduates earn less and get less generous benefits than those at the beginning of this decade. The economic issue is not how to generate more and better-prepared college graduates. Rather, our challenge is to break a system where the best predictor of which students obtain a college education and access to the limited number of good jobs available is so easily predicted by the race, education, and material circumstances of those students’ parents.
And this article from this year:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/business/economy/19grads.html
Employment rates for new college graduates have fallen sharply in the last two years, as have starting salaries for those who can find work. What’s more, only half of the jobs landed by these new graduates even require a college degree, reviving debates about whether higher education is “worth it” after all.
