“Do what you love” has been the advice embedded in American commencement speeches for decades. Now, however, it’s “Do STEM”—Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.
“We have the brains, we have the educational capability, and I’m pretty sure students want a job when they graduate high school and college,” says Army Ranger and entrepreneur Matthew Brosious, co-founder of FreightCenter.com, a third-party logistics company and freight software technology provider. “We do not have to go overseas to find our talent.”
But national statistics reveal a gap between STEM jobs and potential employees that will only grow wider if current trends continue unchanged:
- Only approximately 6 percent of U.S. graduates leave college with a STEM-based degree, compared to 28 percent in Germany, 37 percent in South Korea, and 47 percent in China, according to National Center for Education Statistics.
- STEM jobs are projected to grow twice as quickly as jobs in other fields in the next five years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Statistics.
- Eighty percent of jobs in the next decade will require significant technical skills.
- Of the 20 fastest growing occupations projected in 2014, 15 will require considerable science and/or mathematics preparation, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.