America's Engineering Leadership in Jeopardy as Fewer, Less Prepared Students Plan Engineering Careers

May 5, 2003

IOWA CITY, Iowa—A declining pool of qualified engineering students may threaten America's position as a world leader in engineering, according to a new study by ACT (titled Maintaining a Strong Engineering Workforce). The study points to a large drop over the past 12 years in the number of high school graduates who plan to study engineering in college, as well as to lower levels of preparation and achievement among these students.

"The future of engineering in the U.S. may be in jeopardy," said Richard J. Noeth, director of ACT's Office of Policy Research and a co-author of the report. "We don't have the numbers of prospective students, and many of those students aren't prepared. The science of engineering impacts many important aspects of our day-to-day lives, including our national security, healthcare, and the environment, so these findings should not be taken lightly."

Among the more than 1.1 million seniors in the class of 2002 who took the ACT Assessment college entrance and placement exam, fewer than 6 percent planned to study engineering in college, down from a high of nearly 9 percent in 1992. In addition, these students are less certain of their major than those in the past, with more than 40 percent indicating they need help deciding their educational and career plans.

Potential engineering majors of today are less likely than those of the past to take rigorous high school courses that prepare them for a college engineering program. Over the past 12 years, the percentage of these students who have taken a college preparatory program in high school has decreased. Among potential engineering majors in the class of 2002, one out of 10 had taken no more than basic mathematics courses in high school, and just over half had taken calculus. In addition, the number of potential engineering majors in the top quarter of their high school graduating class has been on the decline, as has the average ACT composite score earned by these students.

"Engineering is a good, high-paying occupation which is likely to be growing in the future," said Noeth. "It should be a very attractive and popular field of study for today's top high school students. Unfortunately, that doesn't appear to be the case."

Engineering encompasses a number of different potential careers, including aerospace engineering, architectural engineering, bio- and biomedical engineering, chemical engineering, civil engineering, computer engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and nuclear engineering.

The study suggests the diversity of the future U.S. engineering workforce is also in question. A decline in the number of females and racial/ethnic minority students interested in the field has accompanied the decrease in the overall number of students planning an engineering career.

"If we want a viable engineering workforce in the future, we must work diligently to better prepare and recruit more able females and minorities to the field so that it better represents our changing population," said Noeth.

Females Untapped Source of Talent

The number of female ACT-takers who are considering engineering careers dropped to a 12-year low in 2002, despite a more than 40-percent increase in the overall number of female test-takers since 1991. Only 18 percent of the planned engineering majors in the high school graduating class of 2002 were female.

Those 2002 graduating females who planned to major in engineering, however, were among the better prepared students in this category; they had higher GPAs and ACT scores and were more likely to have taken advanced math and science coursework than their male counterparts.

"Females are an untapped source of talent to lead the high-tech economy in the future," said Noeth. "Far too few of them are planning to study engineering. We need to increase their interest in pursuing this type of career. They need encouragement early in their lives."

For Minorities, Gap Between Aspirations and Preparation

For racial/ethnic minority students planning an engineering major, the study points to a big gap between aspirations and preparation. Although many of these minority students were very sure they wanted to enter an engineering program in college, an alarming number had not completed any advanced coursework in high school, taking only basic math and science classes. They had significantly lower overall GPAs, were less likely to rank in the top quarter of their class, and had significantly lower ACT scores than their Caucasian counterparts.

"In general, it appears that many minority students who aspire to an engineering career are not adequately prepared to enter an undergraduate engineering program from an academic standpoint," said Noeth. "These students need guidance from teachers and counselors early on to help them plan for their future and select the right courses."

Study Recommendations

The authors of the study offer a number of recommendations to help address the potential crisis in the engineering workforce:

School districts should provide challenging science and math courses which are aligned with college requirements beginning no later than middle school.
School districts and parents should specifically encourage females and minorities to consider and plan for a broad range of careers, especially those in science and engineering.
Colleges and universities should work with school districts to strengthen middle school and high school math and science courses.
Professional engineering organizations should use a variety of media to provide students and their families with stimulating information about engineering careers and increase collaborations with informal education networks (e.g., community organizations, after-school programs).
Policymakers should fund and implement programs that foster student interest in and preparation for engineering careers.
Policymakers should bring together various constituencies to address issues such as enhanced academic standards in science and technology.

The study, conducted by ACT's Office of Policy Research, analyzed 12 years of data that were obtained from roughly 750,000 students from the graduating high school classes of 1991 to 2002 who took the ACT Assessment and who indicated their plans to major in an engineering field upon college entrance.