In Launching the Innovation Renaissance I argued that students were not graduating with the degrees that pay (see also my piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education).

In 2009 the U.S. graduated 37,994 students with bachelor’s degrees in computer and information science. This is not bad, but we graduated more students with computer science degrees 25 years ago! The story is the same in other technology fields such as chemical engineering and math and statistics. If students aren’t studying science, technology, engineering and math, what are they studying? In 2009 the U.S. graduated 89,140 students in the visual and performing arts, more than in computer science, math and chemical engineering combined and more than double the number of visual and performing arts graduates in 1985.

So what has happened since 2009? The good news is that enrollment in STEM fields has increased dramatically. The number of graduates with computer science degrees, for example, has increased by 34%, chemical engineering degrees are up by a whopping 49.5% and math and statistics degrees have increased by 32%.

The bad news is that we are still graduating more students in the visual and performing arts than in computer science, math and chemical engineering combined. As I said in Launching nothing wrong with the visual and performing arts but those are degrees which are unlikely to generate spillovers to society.

We are also graduating more students in communications and journalism than in computer science, math and chemical engineering combined and more students in psychology than in computer science, math and chemical engineering combined. Here’s what I said about psychology:

In 2009 we graduated 94,271 students with psychology degrees at a time when there were just 98,330 jobs in clinical, counseling and school psychology in the entire nation. The latter figure isn’t new jobs — it’s total jobs!

Despite these problems, the number of psychology degrees conferred annually has increased since 2008-2009 by an astounding 21.4%! Visual and performing arts degrees have increased by 9.7% and communication and journalism degrees are up 8.1%. Do you think that jobs in these fields have gone up by equal percentages?

Stated differently, in 2012-2013 we graduated 20,418 more students in computer science, chemical engineering and math and statistics than we did in 2008-2009 but we also graduated 20,179 more students in psychology alone! We have a long way to go.

Here is the data: