A Challenge of Numbers People in the Mathematical Sciences (1990) / Chapter Skim
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2 The U.S. Labor Force and Higher Education
2 The U.S. Labor Force and Higher Education
Pages 9-18
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From page 9... ...
Minorities and women, now less likely to choose mathematically based occupations, will constitute larger shares of new workers. Shifting interests of college students and high attrition have reduced the number of students in the natural sciences and engineering pipeline.
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From page 10... ...
Ranking jobs according to skills, rather than education, illustrates the rising requirements even more dramatically. When jobs are given numerical ratings according to the math, language, and reasoning skills they require, only twenty-seven percent of all new jobs fall into the lowest two skill categories, while 40 percent of current jobs require those limited skills.
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From page 11... ...
These abilities depend on the education of the workers, and since many new technologies are mathematically based, mathematics education is critical. Growth in Science-Based Occupations According to projections of the Bureau of Labor Statist~cs, eight of the ten fastest growing jobs will be in sciencebased occupations by 1995.
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From page 12... ...
The degree programs are housed in 252 departments in 197 institutions as follows: · 174 of the departments have names that include the designations statistics, mathematics, mathematical sciences, or combinations of these; · 35 of the departments are biological units with de =,ree programs titled biostatistics or biometry; · 30 are departments of business administration; and · 13 are scattered among agriculture, psychology, education, and engineering. The list of programs includes: · 131 bachelor's degree programs at 123 institutions; · 217 master's degree programs at 172 institutions; and · 164 doctoral degree programs at 122 institutions.
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From page 13... ...
In fact, native white men, constituting 47% of the 1985 labor force, will constitute only 15% of the new workers between 1985 and 2000 (BLS, 1 987~. If current trends continue these projections indicate reduced numbers of both college students and persons choosing mathematically based occupations.
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From page 14... ...
and for Hispanics (1 of 15~. Data describing persistence indicate which students stay in the general education pipeline and, for those who do not stay in the pipeline, when they exit.
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From page 15... ...
According to the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) , which conducts annual surveys of entering college freshmen, career-related fields have gained in popularity at the expense of virtually every field traditionally associated with a liberal arts education.
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From page 16... ...
Trends in the production of natural sciences and engineering degrees have followed the same general pattern described above- job-related degrees have increased in the last 10 to 15 years, and those in the arts and sciences and not specifically job related have either remained constant or have decreased. For students continuing on to doctoral degrees, conferral of a bachelor's degree can be viewed as a midpoint in the educational process.
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From page 17... ...
1971 1 975 1980 1985 ° Social sciences · Education · English/Letters ° Mathematics ° Life sciences Fine arts · Agriculture & Home Economics 0 Physical sciences Business ° Engineering Computer science 17
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From page 18... ...
The complex circumstances in higher education and in the work force described above have combined with equally complex circumstances within the mathematical sciences to produce layers of formidable and interconnected problems that must be solved to meet the nation's needs for mathematically educated workers. TABLE 2.1 Attainment rates of advanced degrees for selected fields, 1971 to 1985 Master's/Bachelor's (2-year lag)
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