STEM: Piercing a Very Expensive Fog

Economics is based on the idea that when supply and demand meet, a price is determined.

If supply is low and demand is high, the price should be high—and a high price should signal potential suppliers to enter the market to get some of those high prices for themselves.

When it comes to STEM jobs, though, those market signals seem lost. There are lots of great jobs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, but not enough people to fill them, resulting in great salaries for the people with the right skills to fill them.

Still, we found in ACT’s Condition of STEM 2014 report that many of this year’s high school graduates weren’t acting in ways that might position them to take advantage of these financially rewarding careers.

How can we pierce this very expensive fog?

A closer look at STEM numbers

This year, about 1.8 million high school graduates took the ACT. About 900,000 expressed an interest in STEM-related college majors or careers, but only half of those students provided answers on ACT’s Interest Inventory (a series of questions that are asked as part of the registration process) consistent with a demonstrated interest in STEM.

Conversely, about 150,000 students were involved in STEM-related activities, but did not express an interest in STEM-related college majors or careers.

While males were somewhat more likely than females to be interested in STEM, females also expressed a strong interest, often in medical or health-related fields, or in the sciences.

What also remains a challenge are the small numbers of high school graduates who intend to make STEM teaching a career. Of the 1.8 million tested, just 4,424 expressed an interest in teaching math, and only 1,115 wanted to teach science.

It doesn’t take a STEM major to know that’s not enough.

Perfect and Imperfect Information

Economics functions best when market participants have “perfect information”—that is, all the information necessary to make a good decision. Too often, though, teenagers lack even “imperfect information” with which to make important, lifelong decisions—and that’s where you can help.

If you have a STEM-related job, visit a classroom. Almost every fourth grade boy thinks he’ll be an NFL quarterback. You’re not going to change that, but you might be able to convince both boys and girls that engineers build really cool things that can change the world.

If you have an old rotary phone in the basement, bring it to “Show and Tell”—and then play a short video on your smart phone. They’ll look at their family’s cell phones with a new appreciation.

Then, ask them how the everyday objects in their lives—their shoes, glasses, or pencils—might change over the next generation, and listen. Their ideas will be better than yours.

If you can swing a class field trip to your office, do it. At ACT, we had 20 preschoolers visit a generation ago. People working on computers didn’t excite the children, even back then. What really thrilled the youngsters was the trip in the freight elevator.

Kids are hungry for information, even if imperfect. Who knows? One of these former four-year-olds might just now be finishing her degree in civil engineering.

Planting the Tree

It’s said that the best time to plant a tree was 15 years ago. In the absence of a STEM savant inventing a time machine, the best time to start populating the STEM pipeline is now.

At ACT, we’re trying to pierce through the fog by raising the profile of STEM opportunities. Starting next year, we’ll be including STEM scores on our score reports for The ACT, bringing more attention to the skills that, when nurtured, can result in STEM careers. We already include STEM scores for younger students who take the math and science assessments of ACT Aspire.

As parents, teachers, principals, business people, and just plain folks who care about kids, we can all let our next generation know that while being an NFL quarterback would be cool, it’s good to have a backup plan—and a STEM career is an exceptional Plan B.

Don’t complain about what’s coming out of the STEM pipeline. Concentrate on what’s going into it.

It’s time to get to work.

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Jon Whitmore is the CEO of ACT, Inc. ACT’s services include a broad range of assessments encompassing all levels of the educational continuum and a growing array of assessment systems supportive of economic and workforce development worldwide. Before joining ACT, Jon was the president of San Jose State University and Texas Tech University, provost of the University of Iowa, and a professor of theatre at numerous universities.

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