More future Dems? STEM degrees soar at Michigan colleges; business grads decline, records show

[RandySF]

The push to get more Michigan students into math and science heavy programs is bearing fruit, with more people majoring in those fields — while fewer are graduating with degrees in business or liberal arts programs.

Although the overall number of bachelor degrees has fallen slightly since 2018, four of the five programs with the biggest increases are in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) degrees, according to a Bridge Michigan analysis of the bachelor’s degrees awarded since 2018 at the state’s 15 public universities.

And four of the five degrees with the biggest drops were business, social science, communications and English degrees.

The analysis also found that the shift toward STEM is being driven in part by women and minorities who are accounting for a growing share of those degrees, with the trend helping align more Michigan graduates with the hottest and most lucrative jobs in the state.



https://www.bridgemi.com/talent-education/stem-degrees-soar-michigan-colleges-business-grads-decline-records-show

[bucolic_frolic]

1. The computer continues to ripple through education and employment

I feel computers have increased literacy, so out with the English and communications degrees. Business functions are largely automated. You can use QuickBooks instead of a bookkeeper. Social science is at best a mixed bag. You need the math and stats to understand it all. No one writes books anymore. 90% are self-published and never make a dime. Gone are dreams of authorship. Even MFA's in writing are no guarantee of employment.

Go where the scarcity is. A bigger problem is innovation. What's left to innovate and exploit knowledge. We've gone through TV's, consumer electronics, PCs, digital age, medicine. Everyone has a niche. Niches are all that's left today. Awaiting the next innovation.

[ExWhoDoesntCare]

5. Stop

Seriously.

It's not true that there isn't more to learn in the liberal arts or sciences.

And what you learn from liberal arts isn't subject matter expertise--it's how to think.

That's what those programs do, better than any business degree, and as well as science does.

It's what companies are looking for--people who can think.

And anyone who thinks you don't need a person behind the computer to program it and communicate through it is out of his mind.

[Unwind Your Mind]

7. Same goes for bookkeeping

I’m a bookkeeper with a business degree and believe me, QuickBooks will not take care of a business without someone who knows what they’re doing. It becomes a big expensive problem at tax time.

[Tennessee Hillbilly]

2. I wonder what the underlying cause is.

In the 1960s the space program stimulated a similar big shift among college students in this direction, then it slowly shifted back the other way. This same cycle was repeated in the 1990s (on a smaller scale) possibly due to the home computer and internet booms.

If a new shift is starting, perhaps it is due to increased interest among young people in the environment, climate change and/or clean energy.

[mopinko]

3. part that, and part

a college degree used to be useful even outside the field you got it in. but these days the value of a college degree compared to the cost doesnt work that way any more.
ppl are getting degrees w specific jobs in mind. they are doing the analysis.

[MichMan]

4. In the meantime, math scores in K-12 education have declined significantly the last couple years

[debm55]

6. That's odd because most schools have a STEM program starting in Kindergarten. It is a recent

development and may take some years to show up in the score results.

[MichMan]

8. Barely 1 in 4 eighth graders are proficient in math skills

U.S. students in most states and across almost all demographic groups have experienced troubling setbacks in both math and reading, according to an authoritative national exam released on Monday, offering the most definitive indictment yet of the pandemic’s impact on millions of schoolchildren.

In math, the results were especially devastating, representing the steepest declines ever recorded on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the nation’s report card, which tests a broad sampling of fourth and eighth graders and dates to the early 1990s.

In the test’s first results since the pandemic began, math scores for eighth graders fell in nearly every state. A meager 26 percent of eighth graders were proficient, down from 34 percent in 2019.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/24/us/math-reading-scores-pandemic.html

Inner city districts like Detroit are even worse for both 4th and 8th grades. The graphs in the link comparing Detroit to the rest of Michigan and also the nation is very disheartening.

Scores were released at the national and state levels, and for 26 urban districts that opted to participate in a special analysis. The Detroit district’s average fourth grade math score, which had ticked up in the last round of testing, dropped to the lowest point since scores were first released for Detroit in 2009. The decline of 12 points — on a 500-point scale — was among the largest of any large city.

https://detroit.chalkbeat.org/2022/10/24/23416781/detroit-public-schools-naep-testing-scores-2022-pandemic

[MichMan]

9. It would stand to reason students may see a lack of value of taking out loans for non STEM degrees