Washington state is actually doing pretty well in producing family-wage jobs in technology fields. The Boston Consulting Group, in its recent report, “Opportunity For All: Investing in Washington State’s STEM Education Pipeline,” finds that the state has one of the highest proportions of science, technology, engineering and math jobs in the nation, half of which are in computer science.
The difficulty, it says, comes in filling those jobs. Under current trends, only 9 of 100 children born in the state will end up in STEM-related jobs in the state, jobs that BCG estimates number around 25,000 now and which could double by 2017.
Jobs not won by state residents are instead filled by out-of-state workers, or — worse yet — the jobs themselves could be sent out of state.
What’s needed, the consulting group says in its report, are investments by the state and others in early learning, K-12 education, the transition to college, post-secondary education and career coaching. An investment of $650 million in the first three, the report says, would result in the creation of 8,000 STEM jobs and generate $4.5 billion in tax revenue and reductions in spending for the state.
Specifically, the BCG report urges the state to provide:
Early learning opportunities for all students that emphasizes learning numbers as well as language and reading skills;
An emphasis on STEM subjects and curriculum in K-12 education and recruitment and training of teachers in STEM courses;
A doubling of the capacity in colleges for STEM students and an expansion of scholarship programs, such as the Washington State Opportunity Scholarship, which helps low- and middle-income students earn bachelor’s degrees in STEM and health care fields;
Efforts to support and retain at-risk students already in college, to keep them on their paths;
And programs after college to help graduates find work in their chosen field, coach them in their careers and help employers make those jobs attractive to state residents, particularly the women and minorities that many tech companies are eager to recruit and retain.
Delay on these investments would be costly.
Already, students in K-12 schools are preparing to study in STEM fields and are showing great success.
An earlier report by the Washington Roundtable found that the state’s eighth-graders ranked No. 6 in the nation in terms of math achievement and No. 18 in the nation in terms of achievement in science. We’ve made gains in preparing these students to study in these fields; now we have to provide the seats in our colleges to capitalize on that investment.
Tomorrow, we’ll go into greater detail regarding one aspect of this effort: the Washington State Opportunity Scholarship and its outreach to low-income students, women and minorities.
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