Movements and initiatives surrounding STEM education have been sprouting up like mad lately amid cries for more computer science education in public schools, but CS enrollment in colleges is actually on the rise.
A sneak peek of the Computing Research Association’s annual Taulbee report on college computer science enrollment and graduation shows a 22% increase in bachelor’s degree enrollment from 2011-2012 to 2012-2013. This means 60,453 students enrolled in computer science in 2013, compared with just shy of 50,000 the year before.
(Related: Educating the new class of developers)
The number of doctorates in computer science is also up, with 129 CS departments nationwide reporting a 6.8% growth in the number of Ph.D.’s awarded each of the past two years. While enrollment in CS Ph.D. programs actually fell by 1.2% in 2013, 1,596 Ph.D.’s were granted in the U.S., the highest number ever reported in the Taulbee report.
The full Taulbee report will be released in May.
