Growth in Master

1
Growth in Masters Education and the Outlook in
2003 for IT Workers

• Eleanor L. Babco
• Commission on Professionals in Science and
  Technology
• October 24-26, 2003

2
In 2002, Masters Degrees Were

• Four out of five Post-baccalaureate Degrees
  Granted.
• Only one out of five were in a SE Field
• Only 7 were in the Natural Sciences
• About one half were in two fields education and
  business
• Health Sciences were the third largest degree
  field after doubling during the 1990s.

3
During the Decade of the 1990s Masters Degrees

• Increased by nearly 35, overall. Womens share
  grew 46 and by 2002 women earned 58 of all
  masters degrees and 43 of SE degrees.
• Grew by 33 for U.S. citizens permanent
  residents, and 14 in SE.
• More than doubled for URMs (26,666 to 56,207) in
  all fields and increased 93 in SE - from 4,026
  to 7,774.

4
Employment of Masters Level SEs

• Of the 9 million employed SEs in 1999 1.5
  million had a masters degree as their highest
  degree.
• Of those 1.5 million, 56 worked in industry, 29
  in academe, and the remainder in government
  other sectors.

5
Professional Masters Degrees
6
Professional Science Masters Degree as of
October 13, 2003

• Initiated in 1997 97 separate tracks in 45
  universities.
• Data reported from 50 programs 895 enrollments.
• Highest enrollments in bioinformatics, biology,
  biotechnology.
• Two out of five are women one in four a foreign
  national, out in six attended part-time, and one
  in ten are U.S. minorities.
• 230 graduates (109 in 2001 and 121 in 2003)

7
Preliminary Results from Initial Employment
Survey of PSM Grads

• Three-quarters of PSM grads came with BS, 12 had
  an MS and 3 a PhD.
• More than half of PSM grads were supported by
  fellowship/scholarship, almost half had
  university employment (TA), over a third took
  loans, and another third self-financed their PSM
  degree.

8
Preliminary Results from Initial Employment
Survey of PSM Grads

• PSM Grads considered their degree more
  competitive than a BS 2 Yrs work experience and
  as competitive as grads with traditional
  masters degree.
• Three out of five PSM grads work in industry.
• One in three aspires long-term to a career in
  research, while a quarter aspire to senior
  management.
• Internships, independent research projects and
  academic course work judged very useful.

9
Outlook in 2003 for IT Workers

• Recession Effects
• After U.S. jobs in core IT occupations tripled
  between 1983 and 2000 (710,000 to 2,498,000), in
  2001 and 2002, 150,000 IT jobs lost almost 2/3s
  in programming.
• Unemployment in core IT professions rose from
  1.9 in 2000 to 3.6 in 2001 to 4.3 in 2002 and
  an average of 6.9 for the first two quarters of
  2003.

10
Outlook in 2003 for IT Workers

• Changes in Education
• Previously those employed in IT jobs were trained
  for other professions.
• UG students in computer science jumped 40 in
  1995-96, leading to record number of new degrees
  in IT disciplines through 2002, says CRA.
• NCES confirms major increases in IT degrees now
  market poor.

11
Outlook in 2003 for IT Workers

• Immigration Trends
• Foreign-born core IT workers doubled from 1/10 of
  labor force in 1994 to over 1/5 in 2001.
• Immigrants in IT workforce younger and better
  educated than their native counterparts. In
  2002, 53.3 of immigrants with core IT jobs were
  under age 35 41 of natives were.
• More than two of five (41.1) of immigrants had
  graduate degrees, compared to 16.2 of natives.

12
Outlook in 2003 for IT Workers

• Foreign participation in IT labor markets between
  1994 and 2002 facilitated by H-1B legislation.
• The use of L visas more than tripled between late
  1980s and 2002.

13
Outlook in 2003 for IT Workers

• Outsourcing Trends
• Outsourcing has grown from under 300 m in 1995
  to over 1.2 billion in 2001.
• 3.3 million white-collar jobs, worth 136 billion
  in U.S. wages, will be shifted elsewhere by 2015.
  This includes 473,000 IT positions.
• 10 of all U.S. professional IT service jobs will
  be transferred overseas by the end of 2004.

14
Outlook in 2003 for IT Workers

• Projected Changes in Demand
• 2001 BLS Data bullish on IT career prospects, as
  are assessments of demand by Rand Corporation and
  National Science Board.
• Prominent high-tech workers doubt the U.S., can
  be cost-competitive source of labor in global
  employment market.