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Duke study challenges statistics on engineering graduates
There are three types of lies, 19th-century British Prime
Minister Benjamin Disraeli once said: lies, damned lies and statistics.
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Bachelor’s and sub-baccalaureate degrees in engineering, computer science and information technology awarded annually in the United States, India and China.
REPRODUCED COURTESY PRATT SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING
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It now turns out that some startling statistics—reported last year by the National
Academy of Sciences and repeated in media nationwide—have been “corrected” by
a recent Duke University study. The original report, widely interpreted in the
mainstream media to mean that the United States is losing its technological edge,
said that China each year graduates 600,000 engineers and India 350,000, compared
with 70,000 in the United States.
The study found that China and India actually
graduate many fewer engineers than that, 350,000 and 100,000 respectively, and
U.S. colleges graduate nearly twice as many as originally reported, with 137,000
engineers each year. When factored by population, U.S. colleges produce roughly
750 engineers per million citizens, compared with 500 in China and 200 in India,
the study says, demonstrating that the United States remains competitive in global
markets. (See graph.) Even more important, Duke engineering professor Vivek Wadhwa
told National Public Radio, U.S.-trained engineers are better educated.
“Our graduates have a much better chance of competing and doing innovation and
rising within the corporate world than average engineers graduated from India
and China,” Wadhwa said. The danger, he warns, is over-reporting of U.S. engineering
jobs being outsourced overseas, which discourages young people from pursuing
engineering careers. Wadhwa thought the numbers originally reported looked suspect
and, with several student researchers, tried to verify them. The researchers
could not find sources for the original numbers or get accurate statistics from
educational agencies overseas.
Because India has so many new schools, officials can’t even keep track of the
number of students and programs. China had defined engineer broadly, including
not just graduates of four-year programs, but also three-year and diploma programs.
Wadhwa tried to establish common terms, defining an engineer as someone who graduated
from an accredited four-year baccalaureate program in engineering, computer science
or information technology.
Click here for a copy of the report. |
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