Most STEM Majors Don't End Up Working In STEM Jobs
Although jobs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are often viewed as important for America's future, it turns out that only about 37% of college graduates with degrees in STEM fields actually end up in STEM or STEM-related jobs.
The U.S. Census Bureau just released an analysis of relationships between college majors and occupations, based on data from the 2012 American Community Survey, and the results are very interesting.
This chart from the Census Bureau shows the proportions of male and female college graduates with degrees in various majors that end up working in a STEM occupation. For most majors, even STEM majors, only a small number of graduates go on to work in STEM jobs:
Probably the most striking result is that, while about half of math, computer, statistics, and engineering majors end up in STEM jobs, only a quarter or fewer of other STEM majors actually go into jobs in their fields. About 26% of physical science majors work in STEM jobs, and just over 7% of social science majors go into the STEM field.
Meanwhile, only a tiny fraction of people with degrees outside of STEM fields go on to work jobs in those fields. There are about 9.1 million college graduates with business degrees - the single most common major in the U.S. - but only about 600,000, or 6.5% of the total group, are in STEM fields. A tiny 1.8% of education majors go on to work in STEM occupations.
The Census also has a cool interactive graphic that shows what jobs people from different STEM majors actually end up in.
This chart shows where people majoring in math, computers, or statistics end up. On the left are the different STEM major groups, and on the right are different occupations. The thickness of each line connecting majors on the left to occupations on the right is proportional to the number of people with degrees in the major who have jobs in each occupation. Orange lines are for STEM jobs; grey lines are for non-STEM jobs:
A huge number of math, computer, and statistics majors end up working in computer jobs. About half of these majors end up scattered among non-STEM fields.
Similarly, about half of engineering majors go into STEM jobs, with the bulk of those naturally being engineers:
Meanwhile, only about a quarter of physical science majors go into STEM fields, with the rest taking a variety of jobs in other fields:
