CRA Bulletin

The New York Times has an article about the challenge computer science has had bringing women into the field. It mentions CRA’s Taulbee Survey of doctorate-granting computing departments, which has reported that women have received a declining share of undergraduate degrees in CS since the mid-1980s, even as they have made gains in other science and engineering fields. This drop has gone hand-in-hand with results from HERI at UCLA’s survey of incoming freshmen at all undergraduate institutions, which had shown that women’s interest in CS as a major declined significantly between 2000 and 2004.

Data collection is underway for this year’s Taulbee Survey. Anecdotal evidence suggests that there has been a turnaround in undergraduate enrollments and it will be interesting to see what role women play in that.

What about beyond the undergraduate level? Between the early 1980s and late 1990s, women received a little under 30 percent of master’s degrees in CS. Since then it has edged up above that. At the doctorate level, the portion of degrees granted to women has increased slowly, and now is around 20 percent. Women also are making slow inroads among faculty. An encouraging sign is that the share of newly hired, tenure-track faculty that are women has increased steadily for the past several years. For more information, see http://www.cra.org/info/taulbee/women.html and http://www.cra.org/info/education/us/women.html

As a career choice, it is worth point out that the earnings gap for women in IT is narrower than in the overall workforce. And while the current economic downturn probably will cause the Bureau of Labor Statistics to revise its figures downward, its most recent workforce projections predicted strong increases among well-paying professional-level IT occupations between 2006 and 2016.

CRA itself works hard to increase the representation of women in CS education and the IT workforce. Its Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-Women) has had several successful programs, including

Distributed Mentoring Project and Collaborative Research Experiences for Undergraduates

Grad Cohort

Career Mentoring Workshops

This article reports on Ph.D. production and graduate enrollments among computer science (CS) departments in the United States. It draws on data collected by CRA’s Taulbee Survey of doctorate-granting departments.

In the early- and mid-1990s, the number of doctorates granted annually by US CS departments peaked at between 1,000 and 1,100. From the mid-1990s until a few years ago, annual doctorate production hovered at around 800 (Figure 1). At the same time, however, the number of new students entering doctorate programs increased rapidly– their number nearly tripled between 1995 and 2002 (Figure 2). In turn, this led to a near 90% increase in enrollment between 1995 and 2005. The result has been dramatic: doctorate production doubled between 2003 and 2007, to over 1,500.

What can be expected in the next few years? There are signs that the surge in degree production is close to peaking and that the number of doctorates granted will decline somewhat. The number of new students entering doctorate programs has declined in each of the past four years, and is now 17% lower than it was at its peak 2002. Likewise, total enrollments in doctorate programs have leveled off since 2004, and the number of students passing qualifying exams dropped nearly 30% between 2005 and 2007. Overall, it is too soon to tell if degree production will edge back to levels seen in the mid-1990s or if a new, higher level of production will become the norm.

This article reports on the proportion of women who either have received degrees from or are on the faculty of computer science and engineering ("CS/CE") departments in the United States and Canada. It draws on data compiled from CRA’s Taulbee Survey of doctorate-granting CS/CE departments.

Table 1 shows the percentage of bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees granted to women since 1985. Although the gender of Ph.D. recipients has always been tracked by the Taulbee Survey, questions about the gender of bachelor’s and master’s degrees recipients have only been included since 1994. The results from Taulbee are compared with data from National Science Foundation surveys on science and engineering (S&E) degrees. The most recent results for NSF data are from 2005 (no data were reported at the bachelor’s and master’s degrees levels for 1999).[1]

Table 2 focuses on the percentage of bachelor’s and master’s degrees in CS/CE that have been granted to women. Although the Taulbee results combine CE and CS results, while NSF figures reflect CS degrees only, the inclusion of CE data has little impact on the ratio of men to women in Taulbee’s results. Table 2 shows that the Ph.D.-granting departments targeted by the Taulbee Survey grant a lower proportion of bachelor’s and master’s degrees to women than the much broader range of schools that are surveyed by NSF. Unfortunately, both CRA and NSF surveys report that the share of undergraduate CS degrees granted to women has been declining since the mid-1980’s (see also http://www.cra.org/info/education/us/women.html).

Table 3 looks at the percentage of faculty, both current and those newly hired, who are women.

[1] Women, Minorities and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering, Tables C-5 and E-1; and National Science Foundation, Division of Science Resources Statistics. 2006. Science and Engineering Doctorate Awards: 2005. NSF 07-305. Susan T. Hill, project officer. Arlington, VA.

This article can also be found on the CRA website, at http://www.cra.org/info/taulbee/women.html

This article concerns the employment of computer science and computer engineering (CS/CE) doctorates in the United States and Canada in the first year after they received their degrees. It draws on data compiled from CRA’s Taulbee Survey of doctorate-granting CS/CE departments.

The Taulbee Survey, which is conducted each Fall, asks for the employment status of those who received Ph.D. degrees during the previous academic year (AY). Due to changes in the survey, including the addition of new employment categories, it is difficult to trace employment trends before AY1984/1985.

Table 1 shows the results from AY1984/1985 onward as percentiles, since these are more useful for tracking trends than raw numbers. These figures exclude the approximately 15 to 20 percent of doctorates whose employment status were unknown each year, as well as those who were listed as unemployed (who average to only 1 percent).

Figure 1 illustrates the proportion of doctorates who were employed outside of academia (i.e., if self-employed, or in industry or government), academia (i.e., in Ph.D. and non-Ph.D.-granting CS/CE departments, as well as in non-CS/CE departments), and outside North America. Between 1985 and 1990, more doctorates worked in academia (50%) than outside it (40%). After this, however, employment in industry dominated, rising to nearly 60% in 1997. Since 2001, however, there have been two dramatic reversals. Between 2001 and 2003, the share of doctorates going into academia jumped from 44% to 64%, with a concomitant drop in the share working in industry from 52% to 32%. As the fortunes of the IT industry recovered, so did doctoral employment in the sector. By 2007, industry claimed 57% of doctorates while academia had slipped to 32%. During all of this, the share of doctorates working outside the US and Canada varied between 10% and 18% from the mid-1980s until the mid-1990s, and then dropped to about 5% until 2004. Since then, the portion of recent doctorate recipients working abroad has been 10% and above.

This article can also be found on the CRA website, at http://www.cra.org/info/taulbee/employment.html

This article reports on the ethnicity of computer science and computer engineering ("CS/CE") Ph.D. recipients and students in the United States and Canada. It draws on data compiled from CRA’s Taulbee Survey of doctorate-granting CS/CE departments.

Due to changes in the Taulbee Survey, including the addition of new ethnic categories, it is difficult to summarize long-term trends. As a result, Table 1 reports the ethnic background of CS/CE Ph.D. recipients since the 1993/1994 academic year (AY), when the categories and data attained consistency. As can be seen, the proportion of Ph.D.s granted to non-Hispanic Whites ("whites") has declined over the last several years, while the proportion granted to nonresident aliens has increased. The 2006/07 data suggest that the proportion granted to each may be stabilizing.

While the proportions in Table 1 are useful for tracking trends, the actual number of degrees granted to the different ethnic groups can present a starker picture. Between 1970 and 2001, results from the Taulbee Survey indicate that 8,913 CS/CE doctorates were granted to whites, while only 154 were granted to African-Americans. Between 1984– when the Taulbee Survey started to track Hispanics as an ethnic group– and 2001, 6,737 doctorates were granted to whites, while only 229 were granted to Hispanics.

Enrollment data can suggest possible trends in future Ph.D. production. These figures are given in Table 2, which tracks enrolled Ph.D. students by ethnicity. Two noticeable trends are the increase in the representation of nonresident aliens and the decrease among whites seeking doctorates. As with degree production, the share of degrees granted to the different groups has been relatively stable in the past few years.

It seems unlikely that African-Americans, Native Americans, Asian/Pacific Islanders or Hispanics will see a significant improvement in their representation among Ph.D. recipients in the near future.

This article can also be found on the CRA website, at http://www.cra.org/info/taulbee/ethnicity.html

Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates that in 2007, the earnings gap between men and women was narrower among several professional-level IT occupations than found in the overall workforce.

Among all occupations, women earned about 80% of what men were paid. Within the (high paying) larger groupings that the professional-level IT professions fall, women in IT tended to have median weekly earnings that were closer to men’s.

For more information, visit the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Current Population Survey page, http://www.bls.gov/cps/home.htm#annual

CRA’s Taulbee Survey of Ph.D.-granting Computer Science (CS) and Computer Engineering departments in North America has been conducted annually since 1974. Results from the most recent survey will be provided to participants and CRA members this month. They will be published on CRA’s website (www.cra.org/statistics/) and in Computing Research News in May. Due to widespread interest, CRA releases data on undergraduate degrees early.

This article reports on CS bachelor’s degree enrollments and production among Ph.D.-granting departments in the United States since the late 1990s. Data are reported in both total numbers and medians per department since the latter helps limit the effect of variants in response rates. Results from the Taulbee Survey should be compared with data produced by the National Science Foundation (NSF), which surveys all institutions that grant CS degrees (where Taulbee is a survey of the doctorate-granting departments only).

According to HERI/UCLA, the percentage of incoming undergraduates among all degree-granting institutions who indicated they would major in CS declined by 70 percent between fall 2000 and 2005.[See a previous post] Unsurprisingly, the number of students who declared their major in CS among the Ph.D.-granting departments surveyed by CRA also fell (Figure 1). After seven years of declines, the number of new CS majors in fall 2007 was half of what it was in fall 2000 (15,958 versus 7,915). Nevertheless, the number of new majors was flat in 2006 and slightly increased in 2007. This might indicate that interest is stabilizing.

The decrease in new majors has meant that the number of students enrolled in CS has fallen for several years (Figure 2). Between 2005/2006 and 2006/2007, enrollments went down 18 percent to 28,675. Overall, enrollments dropped 49 percent from their height in 2001/2002, while the median number of students enrolled in each department fell 53 percent since 2000/2001.

These declines have had a significant impact on degree production. Following several years of increases, the total number of bachelor’s degrees granted by PhD-granting CS departments fell 43 percent to 8,021 between 2003/2004 and 2006/2007 (Figure 3). The median number of degrees granted per department declined 39 percent (to 42). The sustained drop in total enrollments and student interest in CS as a major suggests that degree production numbers will continue to drop in the next few years.

It is important to note that a steep drop in degree production among CS departments has happened before. According to NSF, between 1980 and 1986 undergraduate CS production nearly quadrupled to more than 42,000 degrees. This period was followed by a swift decline and leveling off during the 1990s, with several years in which the number of degrees granted hovered around 25,000. During the late 1990s, CS degree production again surged to more than 57,000 in 2004. In light of the economic downturn and slow job growth during the early 2000s, the current decline in CS degree production was foreseeable.

The National Academy of Engineering has released its list of 14 Grand Challenges for Engineering for the 21st century.

According to the report’s press release:

The final choices fall into four themes that are essential for humanity to flourish – sustainability, health, reducing vulnerability, and joy of living. The committee did not attempt to include every important challenge, nor did it endorse particular approaches to meeting those selected. Rather than focusing on predictions or gee-whiz gadgets, the goal was to identify what needs to be done to help people and the planet thrive.

The 14 challenges are:

Make solar energy affordable

Provide energy from fusion

Develop carbon sequestration methods

Manage the nitrogen cycle

Provide access to clean water

Restore and improve urban infrastructure

Advance health informatics

Engineer better medicines

Reverse-engineer the brain

Prevent nuclear terror

Secure cyberspace

Enhance virtual reality

Advance personalized learning

Engineer the tools for scientific discovery

Further information about the challenges can be found at: http://www.engineeringchallenges.org/

You may also be interested in the results of CRA’s own grand challenges conferences, http://www.cra.org/grand.challenges/, as well as CRA’s current involvement with the Computing Community Consortium, www.cra.org/ccc. About CCC:

What are the next big computing ideas, the ones that will define the future of computing, galvanize the very best students, and catalyze research investment and public support? The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) seeks to mobilize the computing research community to answer these questions by identifying major research opportunities for the field. The CCC will create venues for community participation in this exciting process.

Updated trend data from both the Taulbee Survey and from the National Science Foundation are now available on the CRA website. The two sources complement each other: Taulbee data are more current and focused on CS/CE (the NSF groups information science with computer science), while NSF data provide longer trends, an opportunity to compare CS/CE with other fields, and include all degree-granting institutions. What follows is a summary of some of the information that you can find on the website. It focuses on the relative popularity of CS and trends in degree production by gender, ethnicity and citizenship. Basic employment information about doctorate recipients also is touched upon.

Bachelor’s Degrees

The most recent data reported by the NSF are from 2004, when degree production peaked. Between 1998 and 2004, the number of degrees awarded more than doubled, to over 57,000. Likewise, CS’ share of all undergraduate degrees granted rose from about 2% to 4%. Interestingly, this equals the share enjoyed by CS during the boom in production in the early 1980s. When NSF data appear for the period 2004 through 2006, it is likely to reflect the Taulbee Survey’s findings that production dropped significantly (28% among Taulbee’s PhD-granting departments). See http://www.cra.org/info/education/us/bs.html and http://www.cra.org/CRN/articles/march07/vegso.html

Between 1984 and 2004, the share of CS bachelor’s degrees awarded to women fell from 37% to 25%. Taulbee data from 2005 and 2006 suggest that upcoming NSF studies will report that the share of degrees granted to women continued to fall in those years. See http://www.cra.org/info/education/us/bs.gender.html and http://www.cra.org/info/taulbee/women.html

Since 1991, the biggest trend in the ethnic background of US citizens who received bachelor’s degrees in CS has been a fall in the share of degrees granted to non-Hispanic Whites. In 2004, whites received 64% of CS bachelor’s degrees, down from 77% in 1991. Small gains were made by other groups, particularly Asian/Pacific Islanders, who saw their representation grow from 9% to 17% by 2001. See http://www.cra.org/info/education/us/bs.ethnicity.html

Regarding citizenship of undergraduate degree recipients, the NSF reported that only 8% of degrees in CS were awarded to foreigners. This percentage has not changed significantly since 1991. See: http://www.cra.org/info/education/us/bs.citizenship.html

Master’s Degrees

As with bachelor’s degree information, the NSF’s most recent data ends in 2004. As a result, it does not reflect the decline that the Taulbee Survey has found for the years since then. What they do show is that production nearly doubled between 1997 and 2004, to 19,853. During this build-up, CS reached its highest share of all degrees granted: 3.8% in 2003. As was the case at the undergraduate level, however, the popularity of CS dropped slightly in 2004. See http://www.cra.org/info/education/us/ms.html

Although the number of master’s degrees granted to women continued to grow over the years, they did not grow faster than the number granted to men between the early 1980s and the late 1990s. As a result, the share of master’s degrees granted to women during that period hovered between 25% and 30%. It climbed to 33% between 2000 and 2002, before declining to 31% in 2004. See http://www.cra.org/info/education/us/ms.gender.html and http://www.cra.org/info/taulbee/women.html

As at the bachelor’s degrees level, the share of master’s degrees granted to whites among U.S. citizens has fallen over the past several years. In 1994, 76% of master’s degrees in CS were granted to whites. In 2004, they received 60%. Blacks, Hispanics and American Indians/Alaskan Natives all saw their share of degrees double, though they started from a small base and none has broken 10%. The share of degrees granted to Asians also grew, from 17% in 1994 to 27% in 2000. See http://www.cra.org/info/education/us/ms.ethnicity.html

Unlike at the undergraduate level, a far higher large portion of master’s degrees are granted to foreigners. In 2004, temporary visa holders received 44% of CS master’s degrees. This number has been relatively stable since 2000, and was 30% in 1991. See http://www.cra.org/info/education/us/ms.citizenship.html

Doctoral Degrees

The NSF has released data on doctorates up to 2005. Between 2002 and 2005, CS doctoral degrees granted increased 40%, to 1,136. During this period, CS enjoyed the fastest growth rate among all science and engineering (S&E) fields. In addition, it reached its highest share of PhDs awarded among both S&E fields (4%) and all fields (2.6%). Taulbee Survey data from 2006 suggest that the NSF will find that CS doctoral production will surge another 25% that year. However, declines in the number of students passing qualifiers, new students and total enrollments all indicate that PhD production should peak in the next few years. See http://www.cra.org/info/education/us/phd.html

The share of CS doctoral degrees awarded to women has increased slowly over time. Nevertheless, between 2002 and 2005 the figure hovered at little over 20%. It is difficult to see how significant growth in women’s share of CS doctorates can be achieved without improvements at the undergraduate and master’s levels. See http://www.cra.org/info/education/us/phd.gender.html and http://www.cra.org/info/taulbee/women.html

In contrast to the declining share of bachelor’s and master’s degrees granted to whites, a relatively consistent 70% to 75% of doctorates were granted to them between 1993 and 2005. The share granted to Asians varied between 15% and 20%, while blacks, Hispanics and American Indians each received less than 5% of degrees. See http://www.cra.org/info/education/us/phd.ethnicity.html and http://www.cra.org/info/taulbee/ethnicity.html

The biggest trend in the citizenship of doctorate recipients in the past decade has been the growth in the portion granted to non-US citizens on temporary visas. Between 1993 and 2005, about 50% to 53% of doctorates were foreigners. This figure increased in 2004 and 2005, to slightly over 60%. The growth of temporary visa holders among these doctorate recipients has been steady. In 1994, 75% of non-US citizens held temporary visas. This had risen to 90% in 2005. Taulbee Survey responses for enrollments suggest that these figures are unlikely to change significantly in the next few years. See http://www.cra.org/info/education/us/phd.citizenship.html and http://www.cra.org/info/taulbee/ethnicity.html

The Taulbee Survey also collects information on what doctorate recipients were doing the first year after they received their degrees. One way the results can be grouped is into the categories of academia (with most working in PhD-granting departments), non-academia (most in industry, and single-digit portions in government or self-employed), and work outside the US and Canada. Between 1985 and 1990, more doctorates worked in academia (50%) than outside it (40%). After this, however, employment in industry dominated, rising to nearly 60% in 1997. Since 2001, however, there have been two dramatic reversals. Between 2001 and 2003, the share of doctorates going into academia jumped from 44% to 64%, with a concomitant drop in the share working in industry from 52% to 32%. As the fortunes of the IT industry recovered, so did doctoral employment in the sector. By 2006, industry claimed 54% of doctorates while academia had slipped to 33%. During all of this, the share of doctorates working outside the US and Canada varied between 10% and 18% from the mid-1980s until the mid-1990s, and then dropped to about 5% until 2004. Since then, the share working abroad has returned to 13%. See http://www.cra.org/info/taulbee/employment.html

Source data for all of the tables in the Taulbee Survey have now been added to the report: 2005-2006 Taulbee Survey. The data are available both as individual text files or combined in a zip file.

The Taulbee Survey is the principal source of information on the enrollment, production, and employment of Ph.D.s in computer science and computer engineering (CS & CE) and in providing salary and demographic data for faculty in CS & CE in North America. Statistics given include gender and ethnicity breakdowns.

The previous entry discussed CRA Taulbee Survey results on the growth in the number of CS/CE doctorate awards in the US and Canada through academic year 2005/2006. Doctorate production numbers from NSF are available only up to June 2005, but they cover all fields and so offer context for the Taulbee Survey’s findings.

In 2005, the number of science and engineering (S&E) doctorate awards increased to 27,974. This was 6.5% higher than in 2004, and the third year of growth. CS doctorates increased 20%, to 1,136. Since the low point of degrees awarded in 2002, CS has enjoyed the fastest growth (40%) among S&E fields. In addition, it reached its highest share of doctorates awarded among both S&E fields (4%) and all fields (2.6%).

For more information, see the NSF InfoBrief: S&E Doctorates Hit All-time High in 2005.

According to CRA’s Taulbee Survey, the number of doctorates granted by CS and CE departments in the US and Canada increased 26% between academic year 2005 and 2006, to 1,499. This is the third year of strong growth in degree production. Even more doctorates are likely to be granted in 2007: the number of students who passed their thesis candidacy exams increased 19% from the previous year. Further along, there are some signs that the growth in production will ease. The number students who passed their qualifying exams dropped 5%, and the number of new students fell 6%– the fourth year with a decline. As a result, total enrollments have dropped slightly for the past two years, following several years of double-digit growth.

The full report is online at http://www.cra.org/CRN/articles/may07/taulbee.html

Results from CRA’s Taulbee Survey of Ph.D.-granting computer science departments show a continued fall in undergraduate enrollments and degrees granted.

From the article on the results (Continued Drop in CS Bachelor’s Degree Production and Enrollments as the Number of New Majors Stabilizes):

After six years of declines, the number of new CS majors in fall 2006 was half of what it was in fall 2000 (15,958 versus 7,798). Nevertheless, this was only a slight decline from the 7,952 new majors reported in fall 2005, and may indicate that the numbers are stabilizing.

Enrollments dropped 14 percent between 2004/2005 and 2005/2006, to 34,898. Overall, enrollments dropped 39 percent from their height in 2001/2002, while the median number of students enrolled in each department fell 44 percent since 2000/2001.

The total number of bachelor’s degrees granted by PhD-granting CS departments fell 28 percent between 2003/2004 and 2005/2006, to 10,206.

Full results from the Taulbee Survey will be available in May.

I cobbled together previous bulletin entries and some new sources on foreigners studying and working in computer science in the US for an article in the May issue of CRA’s Computing Research News. Some of the data that it mentions:

54 percent of CS doctorate recipients in 2004 held visas. Most of these (95 percent) were temporary visas. Forty-six percent of master’s degrees awarded in 2002 were to temporary residents. Among enrollments, 58 percent of full-time graduate students held temporary visas in 2003, as did over half of those enrolled in doctoral programs in 2004/2005.

74 percent of those on temporary visas who graduated with CS PhDs in 2001 were still in the US in 2003. Among all S&E doctorates, 68 percent of the 2001 class was in the US in 2003—compared to a two-year stay rate of 41 percent in 1989.

Forty-four percent of those who received their CS doctorates in the US and were working in academic institutions in 2003 were born outside the US, including 46 percent of full-time senior faculty and 53 percent of junior faculty.

About 70 percent of full-time, first-time graduate students enrolled in CS were foreigners in 2000 and 2001. By 2003, however, their representation had declined to 52 percent.

While the number of foreign students on temporary visas studying CS full time in 2003 was still more than twice what it was in 1996, CS was the only large field to see a significant decline between 2002 and 2003: its losses accounted for two-thirds of the drop in temporary visa holders in S&E fields that had declining enrollments.

The full article: Foreigners and Graduate-Level Computer Science in the U.S.

Results from the 2004-2005 CRA Taulbee Survey of PhD-granting departments of computer science (CS) and computer engineering (CE) in the United States and Canada are now available.

To summarize the degree production and enrollment data: more PhDs were granted in 2004/2005 than in any previous year. At the same time, the number of new students and total enrollments declined, indicating that PhD production should peak in the next few years. Declines in the number of degrees granted and new students were seen at the Master’s and Bachelor’s levels. Enrollments at the Master’s degree level increased slightly but they declined significantly at the Bachelor’s degree level (see also Drop in CS Bachelor’s Degree Production).

The report is online at http://www.cra.org/statistics/

NB: See also this bulletin item.

Results from CRA’s most recent Taulbee Survey of PhD-granting departments show that the total number of bachelor’s degrees granted in CS by US departments fell 17 percent between AY 2003/2004 and 2004/2005, to 11,808. The median number of degrees granted per department declined by 14 percent (to 59). Continuing a trend that began a few years ago, new majors and enrollments also fell.

Traditionally, the Taulbee Survey’s Ph.D.-granting schools have produced a little less than 30 percent of the undergraduate CS degrees reported by NSF. It is important to note that a steep drop in degree production among CS departments has happened before. According to NSF, between 1980 and 1986 undergraduate CS production nearly quadrupled to more than 42,000 degrees. This period was followed by a swift decline and leveling off during the 1990s, with several years in which the number of degrees granted hovered at around 25,000. During the late 1990s, CS degree production again surged to more than 43,000 in 2001. In light of the economic downturn and slow job growth during the early 2000s, another decline in CS degree production was foreseeable. See http://www.cra.org/info/education/us/bs.html

For more information, see the March 2006 Computing Research News article, Drop in CS Bachelor’s Degree Production.

Results from CRA’s Taulbee Survey of Ph.D.-granting CS/CE departments in the U.S. and Canada show that starting with the 2001/2002 Ph.D. graduates, a greater portion of doctorates found employment in academic departments than in industry. This had not occurred since 1989/1990.

It seems reasonable to interpret the data in light of the IT downturn, with last year’s results indicating that industry is hiring more graduates and/or is thought to have become a more stable source of employment. Nevertheless, it is important to note that the trend towards more students finding employment in academia had started well before the IT downturn.

A more detailed breakout of employment results is at http://www.cra.org/info/taulbee/employment.html