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ENGINEERING AND SOCIAL DYNAMICS 55 larly true in the case of Ph.D. engineers, since a disproportionate number of current U.S. doctoral candidates are foreign nationals. There is a fine line between shortage and surplus of engineers. To a great extent the existence of either one is a matter of individual perception. But any deviation (real or perceived) from a balance between the two tends to cause turbulence in the profession and in industry. This problem is intensified by the fact that demand tends to alter more quickly than supply can be adjustedâit takes at least four years to educate an engineer. Thus there is necessarily an out- of-phase quality to the time frames in which demand and supply operate. By and large, however, there has been sufficient flexibility in engineering education, and in the profession as a whole, to meet past needs. Yet there have been significant changes in societal attitudes and values, as well as in the nature and scope of business, that will affect the demand for engineers and engineering- related products. The elasticity of the supply system will be tested. It remains to be seen whether it can continue to function adequately under current and future conditions. Factors Limiting Supply Response In an assessment of the adequacy of the engineer supply system a number of important variables come into play. One of these is the makeup of the pool of incoming engineering students, in terms of both demographics and academic ability. Census data indicate that the number of 18-year-olds in the population began to decline in 1982, and will continue to fall off until the mid-1990s. It is true that a higher percentage of students have been opting for engineering studies in recent years, but that percentage is variable, so that the overall drop in number of students entering college may become significant for engineering enrollments in the future. An offsetting trend currently is the fact that more women have been entering engineering programs. The percentage of undergraduate female students is now around 15 percent nationwide, but the increase in female enrollments has slowed markedly in the past two years (Engineering Manpower Commission, 1984). Enrollments of Orientals are quite high: 4.2 percent of bachelor's degrees awarded in 1983, for example, went to Asian/Pacific graduates; in California, Orientals accounted for a full 32 percent of undergraduate engineering degrees (Panel on Engineering Graduate Education and Research, 1985). However, enrollments of other minorities, such as blacks and Hispanics, remain low. Apart from quantities, another limiting factor is the variable ability
ENGINEERING AND SOCIAL DYNAMICS 56 or preparedness of the student pool. Engineering deans report that SAT scores of entering engineering students are at an all-time high, and have recently surpassed those of liberal arts majors for the first time. Interest in engineering over the past several years has been such that the better-quality schools have had to turn away applicants with strong qualifications, for lack of room. This presents a problem in itself, since it means that potentially talented students are not able to acquire a high-quality engineering education. An interesting corollary of the increased attractiveness of engineering is that the demographics of engineering students have also changed recently: engineering deans and faculty note that many more students are now coming from the suburban middle and upper-middle class. A different factor that may have implications for engineering supply in the future is that, in general, the level of math and science literacy in the secondary- school population is declining (see, for example, National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983). Although test scores of current engineering- school entrants are higher than ever, the scores of the overall pool are lower than ever. This trend, if it continues, cannot help affecting the quality of engineering students in the future, particularly as student career choices seem to be strongly affected by shifts in the perceived employment prospects for a given field. The antitechnology sentiment is an underlying current that may once again become overt, as it did in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Because such shifts in perception affect the nature of demand for technological goods and services, they also affect the demand for engineering personnel, and thus indirectly the supply as well. Current engineering students are among the most able in their age cohort. If engineering were to become less popular as a career choice, the drop in quality of applicants could be precipitous. In addition, the fall-off in overall math/science literacy must be viewed against a backdrop of greatly increasing emphasis on math and science in engineering by the year 2000. Salaries of engineers have been a strong point in attracting students, particularly during the recent inflation/recession cycle. But it is becoming widely recognized that, after the initial five years in industry, engineering salaries tend to flatten out in comparison to other professions (in fact, even in comparison to some skilled workers) (Engineering Manpower Commission, 1983a, 1983b). If there are indeed shortages of engineers, salaries do not reflect that fact. Concern about this and the related issue of quick obsolescence of the engineer may combine to reduce interest in engineering as a career, if the economy continues to improve.
