Number of computer science graduates (was: Re: Y Store now C++)

[Matt Curtin <address@hidden>]

John Morrison <jm@mak.com> writes:

> This information is old (vintage mid-1997), but...
> 
> "In the U.S., the number of computer-science graduates has plummeted
> in the past decade or so, from 48,000 graduates in 1984 to an
> estimated 26,000 this year."

I do not know the data for universities worldwide or even in the U.S.,
but at Ohio State, we experienced a tremendous surge in our CIS, CSE,
and MIS enrollment.  (Graduates were also up, but obviously on a
delay, though I do not know how much graduates were up by comparison
to enrollment.)

Since the dot-com bust, though, enrollment is on a downward trend.  At
the height of the boom and slightly thereafter, we kept moving the
minimum GPA requirement up to keep the number of students in the CIS
major to a manageable level.  I believe that it went as high as 3.5
before moving downward again.  I think it is sitting at about 3.2 now.

By comparison, in 1997, the minimum GPA requirement for the major was
something like 2.8.

I would expect that if someone compiled and studied the data, he'd
find that we're on an upward trend over a five or six year period,
though we're on a downward trend over the past year or two.  Anyone
know of a place where the suspicion can be examined in light of more
data?

-- 
Matt Curtin, CISSP, IAM, INTP.  Keywords: Lisp, Unix, Internet, INFOSEC.
Founder, Interhack Corporation +1 614 545 HACK http://web.interhack.com/
Author of /Developing Trust: Online Privacy and Security/ (Apress, 2001)