Lumping science, technology, engineering, and math together obscures more than it clarifies, according to Danielle Kurtzleben:
[I]t’s not necessarily that there aren’t enough science and math scholars out there; it’s that there aren’t enough people out there with the particular skills the job market needs right now. Spending four years doing biology experiments is no guarantee for a job, and indeed might not go as far as a couple semesters of statistics or computer science.
The issue in part is that STEM is in many ways too broad a classification to describe the complicated job market right now. A May 2014 report from the Government Accountability Office found that employment and wage outcomes could vary widely between healthcare STEM jobs, so-called “core STEM” jobs, and other STEM jobs. “STEM makes no sense as a category. What you have is science and engineering, and then you have this IT labor force,” says Hal Salzman, a professor of planning and public policy at Rutgers University.
(Chart from the GAO’s “Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education: Assessing the Relationship between Education and the Workforce,” May 2014)
The Dish 