Nation topped goal of ‘one million more’ STEM graduates over the past decade

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. – With this Saturday marking the national and international day of observance for STEM and STEAM, a fair question to ask is if the United States is producing enough college graduates with degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to maintain its leadership position in an increasingly competitive global arena?

An analysis by a National Science Foundation fellow at the University of California, Santa Cruz, concluded that we were on the right track. The study of national higher-education data, published in the Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education, found that the United States exceeded the goal of producing one million more graduates in STEM fields over the course of a decade.

That goal, set in a 2012 report by then-President Barack Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), was one of several national objectives created to maintain America’s scientific leadership position amid increasingly global competition.

But the good news delivered by the study came with an equally loud warning: that maintaining this momentum is threatened by the current assault on national-data infrastructure and the federal agencies that house them. These records help keep academic institutions accountable and show proof of return on investments that funded expansion of STEM education programs over the past decade.

Indeed, author Haider Ali Bhatti frames his study in the present-day context of the headwinds U.S. universities face: public skepticism of their value, claims of ideological indoctrination, and the ongoing dismantling of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

“Overall, these results reveal patterns that challenge public narratives about the diminishing state of higher education—particularly in undergraduate STEM education,” Bhatti said. “These findings provide an evidence-based foundation for both evaluating past investments and guiding future strategies to strengthen America’s talent development in the evolving global STEM ecosystem.”

For his analysis, Bhatti relied largely on data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), noting it as a division of the U.S. Department of Education, which has been critically defunded and affected by mass layoffs due to federal restructuring.

The study's main takeaways and a full summary can be found in on the UC Santa Cruz Newscenter.