July 9, 2009 10:25AM # STEM Sky Not Falling? By [Neal McCluskey](https://www.cato.org/people/neal-mccluskey) --- SHARE ![]()Education policy is far too rarely driven by facts or logic — they’re just too inconvenient, mucking up both uber-hyped “crises” and [warm-and-fuzzy myths](http://www.isi.org/books/bookdetail.aspx?id=7408b78c-5216-4ab9-80a1-a955701324af). Recently, [the big scare](http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11463) has been that the United States is on its way to a desperate shortage of scientists and engineers, a message that has, of course, been heartily embraced by politicians determined to [push more kids](http://www.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/competitiveness/index.html) into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Well, it seems that once again the crisis *du jour* has been well overstated. *USA Today* has [a great new story](http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2009-07-08-science-engineer-jobs_N.htm) demonstrating that we actually have more than enough scientists and engineers. (Not that this hasn’t [been pointed out before](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9910492).) Most telling is the content in the article’s sidebar, which includes some real crisis-deflating stuff: > Detailed findings issued last year by the federally funded RAND National Defense Research Institute found “no evidence of a current shortage” of science and engineering workers. It said National Science Foundation predictions of shortages so far have proved “inaccurate.” > > > RAND… recommended a permanent commitment to monitoring the USA’s science and technology performance, but said the slow growth of U.S.-born technical workers “will change when the earnings and attractiveness of S&E (science and engineering) careers improve.” So we actually have plenty of scientists and engineers, and the market appears to be working just as it should? I hope someone tells our leaders! Otherwise, they’ll [almost certainly push](http://www.livecareer.com/news/Education/Obama-We-Need-More-Scientists-and-Engineers_$$00753.aspx) even more kids into jobs that, it turns out, will probably only exist in the land of imaginary crises. ##### Related Tags [Education](https://www.cato.org/education), [Center for Educational Freedom](https://www.cato.org/center-educational-freedom) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).