The Quiet Crisis*

• Office of Technology Assessment was eliminated in the '90s (The Office of Technology Assessment provided impartial analysis of scientific information for the U.S. Congress. No such office exists now).

• National Science Foundation budget cut 2%

• Federal funding in physical and mathematical sciences, and engineering, as a share of GDP, declined by 37% from 1970 to 2004

• NASA
------· 40% of employees are 50 or older
------· 22% of employees are 55 or older
------· 4% of employees are under 30

• NSF Report
------· Half of U.S. scientists and engineers are over the age of 40; the average age is steadily rising.
------· Percentage of scientific papers authored by Americans has decreased by 10% since 1992.
------ ------· Physical Review; since 1983, the number of papers authored by Americans has dropped
------ ------from 61% to 29%.
------· 60% of top science students in the United States are children of recent immigrants.

• National Science Board (Oversees NSF)
----_-· Steady decline in the number of U.S. citizens who are training to become scientists or engineers.
------· 30 years ago, the United States ranked 3rd in the world in the number of science degrees granted. We are now ranked 17th.
------· In the United States, 31% of the degrees granted are in science and engineering (China 60%, South Korea 33%, Taiwan 41%).
------· Russia produces 5 times more engineers than the United States.
------· The number of jobs that require scientific or engineering training continues to grow.
------· Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that science and engineering jobs will increase at three times the rate of all occupation. But who will fill these jobs?
------· 1990 to 2000: Due to insufficient numbers of adequately trained Americans, the percentage of foreign nationals occupying science and engineering jobs has increased over this 10-year period for each of the following degrees;
------------· B.S. rose from 11 to 17%
------------· M.S. rose from 19 to 29%
------------· Ph.D. rose from 24 to 38%

The National Science Board states: "If action is not taken now to change these trends, we could reach 2020 and find that the ability of U.S. research and education institutions to regenerate has been damaged, and their preeminence has been lost to other areas of the world."

*Source: The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman