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by equality_1138 1940 days ago
Increase in STEM degrees does not have a causal effect on number of good jobs. Any hope that it does is about as speculative as "investing" in bitcoin or the next Gamestop pattern.
1 comments

So much this.

I live in Austria now and the market is flooded with STEM grads due to very good schools and free education to the point where, in my college town, I can't throw a rock out the window without hitting someone doing a PhD in ML, but that doesn't translate to an abundance of jobs due to the lack of VC funding in this area.

This leads to massive academic title inflation where, unless you already have job experience, most companies can afford to throw your resume in the bin if you don't have a MSc and stil have enough candidates to fulfill their demand, so your only choice if to pursue at least a MSc if you want to be employed.

Friends in Denmark have told me the same, you can easily find an Architect but good luck finding a plumber.

The truly sad part is it leads to broad financialization of Science. People up here making education into a personal problem (haves/havenots) are apparently "too smart" to see the social costs of heavy public investment in STEM education