CRA Bulletin

NB: See also this bulletin item.

Interest in computer science (CS) and computer engineering (CE) as majors among incoming freshmen at all undergraduate institutions remained low in 2006, according to survey results from the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles (HERI/UCLA).

After peaking in 1999 and 2000, interest in CS as a major fell 70 percent between 2000 and 2005. In the fall of 2006, 1.1 percent of incoming freshmen indicated CS as their probable major, the same as in 2005. [Please note that this is a measure of intended majors, not of actual enrollments.]

Results from this year’s Taulbee Survey of PhD-granting CS departments will show a second year of double-digit declines in the number undergraduate students enrolled in CS and in bachelor’s degrees granted in 2005/2006. (These numbers will be released March 1).

Interest in CE has been tracked only since 2002, and has fallen every year since then. In the Fall of 2006, 1 percent of incoming freshmen indicated CE as their probable major.

The HERI/UCLA CIRP Freshmen Survey is at http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/heri/freshman.html