U.S. Is Urged to Invest in Science Education or Risk Losing Its Global Edge By LILA GUTERMAN
San Francisco
The president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science opened the group's annual meeting with a dire warning: If the United States does not quickly invest more resources and entice more students into science and engineering, it could lose the lead in areas that have spurred innovation, sustained national security, improved public health, and driven a strong economy.
Mary L. Good, dean of the College of Information Science and Systems Engineering at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, also recommended in her speech Thursday that to meet the challenge, the federal government ought to establish a cabinet position in science and technology.
With the exception of the health sciences, the share of the gross domestic product that goes to scientific research has fallen in recent years, she noted. At the same time, the number of students earning bachelor's degrees in the same areas has decreased sharply. "Since 1986, B.S. degrees in engineering, mathematics, and computer science have dropped by about 20 percent," she said. The number of Ph.D.'s awarded by American universities in those areas has also decreased, and only slightly more than half of the students who earned them in 1999 were American citizens.
"When one compares our work force to our global competitors, we find that we lag behind most of the industrialized world in the percentage of 24-year-olds with natural-science and engineering degrees," Ms. Good said. China produces more than twice as many engineering graduates as the United States, while Japan produces one-and-a-half times as many.
"In contrast to ideas, we have a decreasing cadre of professionals in the sciences and engineering, with the exception of the life sciences," she said. "If these student-output trends continue, and if the overall research budget does not keep up with the rise of our G.N.P. and the rate of development of our industries, the United States in 25 years could be in a much less competitive position than it is today. This would affect our overall well-being as well as being a threat to our national security."
To remedy the situation, Ms. Good said that scientific and engineering leaders must team up to develop specific proposals that attack both concerns and that the government "needs to recognize and showcase the vital role played by research, development, and technically trained people." She recommended establishing a cabinet position in science and technology that would coordinate federal R & D; review government laboratories to sharply reduce bureaucratic overhead and let local administrators define and execute their mission; and "design and execute programs that directly incentivize students to enter science, math, and engineering careers."
"This cabinet officer should also establish an office to deal directly with university issues with the goal of increased enrollment through expanded traineeships at the graduate level and targeted scholarships at the undergraduate level," Ms. Good said. "The goal should be to increase the pool of students capable of science, math, and engineering careers rather than concentrating totally on the very few of the brightest and best-prepared students."