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Questioning the answer on the STEM shortage

There’s a talent shortage brewing in the Pacific Northwest. As the boundless opportunities continue to grow in our backyard, critical fields in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) are demanding more highly trained leaders, doers and thinkers. In fact, the Boston Consulting Group projects a shortage of 25,000 jobs in the next couple of years, most notably in the computer science and engineering (CSE) field.

The UW is undaunted in our pursuit to meet this pressing need for our state. This past June, the UW conferred more than 15,000 new graduate, professional and undergraduate degrees to our students. That’s more than 40 percent of all bachelor’s degrees and close to 80 percent of graduate and professional degrees in the state. Almost 45 percent of these degrees were in “high demand” fields, with one third in STEM areas. In fact, the UW has increased our STEM degree production by almost 50 percent in the past 5 years.

Despite our passion and drive toward progress, we simply must do more to support our students and our state’s thriving STEM economy. One step is to build a new computer science facility that will certainly help address this shortage, but also ensure students in non–computer science disciplines get an opportunity to take classes in this field. There are virtually no fields of study at any university that don’t require some basic knowledge of computer systems and programming. It is vital to how we teach and do research in nearly all fields — even English and history.

Expanding our capacity will allow us to roughly double our CSE graduates from 300 to 600 per year. A significant increase in CSE graduates will meet the market demands from innovators in our city and our region. And as the center for training outstanding STEM professionals, the UW will embolden the Puget Sound’s reputation as the crown jewel of technology, innovation and STEM leadership in the Pacific Northwest.