Race for engineering edge to be won, lost in colleges – As Pacific Rim nations graduate more engineers, U.S. may be loser

The United States faces a crisis in engineering – the nucleus of many vital industries – that menaces its economic future.

Pacific Rim nations are graduating great numbers of engineers and are threatening to seize the mantle of industrial innovation that was pivotal to making the U.S. economy globally dominant. Last year, foreign nationals also won almost 60 percent of U.S. engineering doctorates.

Experts warn that the U.S. lead is slipping away.

"We are being outproduced in engineering graduates – both undergraduate and graduate level – by Pacific Rim countries, and the comparison will be more extreme as the years go by," said Richard Heckel, founder of Engineering Trends, a research consultancy. "From an engineering standpoint, the future leaders of the world are going to come from the Pacific Rim."

By Kevin G. Hall
Knight-Ridder Newspapers

Full Story: http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_2942913