George Allen's Bogus Engineering Numbers

Good ol' George Allen. By golly if he isn't "doing something" about one of our most pressing issues of the day! No, not Iraq, high gas prices, global warming, rebuilding the Gulf Coast, fair taxes, raising the minimum wage.

What you thought those were the big issues? Well let George tell you: its the engineer gap that's really bedeviling our country. And Senator Allen is there to help out. You see, according to George China is turning out 600,000 engineers per year, India 400,000, but the U.S. only 70,000. We're falling behind, dadgummit. Time to do something!

There's only one problem: Allen's numbers are bogus. The widely cited engineer gap was largely debunked (that means "disproved," George) in a study published by a group of Duke engineers about a year ago. It turns out that the comparison between U.S. engineers and those from China and India was a comparison of apples to oranges and grapefruits.

The 70,000 U.S. engineers per annum are those with engineering degrees from four-year colleges. It does not include many graduates with technical degrees in two and three year programs, nor does it include large numbers of graduates with degrees in the computer and information technology fields. In contrast, the numbers out of China and India include as "engineers" a large number of "graduates" from shorter programs who in the U.S. would be considered "technicians." It also includes computer and information technology workers, who in the U.S. are not classified as engineers.

Reworking the numbers, Duke concluded that the U.S. turns out 222,000 "engineers" per year (using the same operational definition as for China and India), compared to 215,000 for India and 640,000 for China. India has three times the population of the U.S., and also has a lot of catching up to do to reach the level of engineers per capita that we already have in the U.S. China has four times the population of the U.S. and likewise has a lot of catching up to do.

Even those numbers are a bit misleading, because the quality of the engineering programs at the lower, more technical levels in China and India are considered well below U.S. standards.

Bottom line: there is no engineer gap. There is no "problem" to fix. Allen is tilting at windmills, while he tries to cover up his role in the ongoing fiasco that is the Bush Administration.

You go, George!