No Future in American Science

An anonymous reader writes "Science Blog reports America is facing a dangerous shortage of eggheads: "America's top college graduates increasingly reject careers in science and engineering, researchers have found, raising concerns about America's technological future. Faced with the prospect of low-paid apprenticeships and training lasting a decade or more - and constricted job opportunities even after that - more of the brightest young Americans are instead pursuing the quicker and surer payoffs offered by business and certain professions.... 'With the notable exception of biological sciences, many of the top U.S. students with potential to become scientists are turning toward other career paths,' said one of the study's co-authors.""

Comments

Linked to a decline in research?

[Scorchio]

Bob Cringley wrote this article last year, talking about a decline in the amount of basic research being carried out at companies within the US. It would seem that the first part of a company to suffer cutbacks and layoffs in times of economic hardship is the research department. It would stand to reason that anyone coming through college and seeing the decline in the number of jobs in scientific and engineering research are more likely to opt for something that may give them a more secure future.

Which is a shame really, because these are exactly the sort of people who are likely to be developing my flying car.

Side effect

[Theorem Futile]

A side effect of the shortage of PhD graduates is the difficulty for Universities to recruit enough qualified scientists to preserve the current amount of research & teaching and prevent units or even departments closures.