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There’s a debate going on now among U.S. computer science researchers and educators, about whether the U.S. as a nation is serious about maintaining its lead in computer science. We have been the envy of the world, drawing most of the worlds’ best and brightest in the field to our country, and laying the foundations of a huge industry that has fostered wealth and national power. But there is a growing sense within the field that all of this may be changing. This sense of malaise is a common topic around faculty water coolers across the country, and in speeches by industry figures like Bill Gates and Vint Cerf.

Whatever the cause – and more on that below – there two main symptoms. First is a sharp decrease in funding for computer science research, especially in strategic areas such as cybersecurity. For example, DARPA, the Defense Department research agency that funded the early Internet and other breakthroughs, has cut its support for university computer science research by more than 40% in the last three years, and has redirected the remaining funding toward short-term advanced development efforts. Corporate research is not picking up the slack.

The second symptom, which in my view is more worrisome, is the sharp decrease in the number of students majoring in computer science. One reputable survey found a 60% drop in the last four years. One would have expected a drop after the dotcom crash – computer science enrollments have historically tracked industry business cycles – but this is a big drop! (At Princeton, we’ve been working hard to make our program more compelling, so we have seen a much smaller decrease.)

All this despite fundamentals that seem sound. Our research ideas seem as strong as ever (though research is inherently a hit-and-miss affair), and the job market for our graduates is still very strong, though not as overheated as a few years ago. Our curricula aren’t perfect but are better than ever. So what’s the problem?

The consensus seems to be that computer science has gotten a bad rap as a haven for antisocial, twinkie-fed nerds who spend their nights alone in cubicles wordlessly writing code, and their days snoring and drooling on office couches. Who would want to be one of them? Those of us in the field know that this stereotype is silly; that computer scientists do many things beyond coding; that we work in groups and like to have fun; and that nowadays computer science plays a role in almost every field of human endeavor.

Proposed remedies abound, most of them attempts to show people who computer scientists really are and what we really do. Stereotypes take a long time to overcome, but there’s no better time than the present to get started.

UPDATE (July 28): My colleagues Sanjeev Arora and Bernard Chazelle have a thoughtful essay on this issue in the August issue of Communications of the ACM.