ENABLING THE U.S. ENGINEERING WORKFORCE FOR TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION: THE VALUE OF ENGINEERING TO THE NATION'S GROWTH AND SECURITY

摘要

This is the fourth of four invited papers prepared for a special panel session of the National Collaborative Task Force on Engineering Graduate Education Reform that is focusing its efforts on the deliberate advancement of professional engineering graduate education to enable a strong U.S. engineering workforce for competitiveness and national security purposes. This final panel paper is focusing specifically on the worth of the engineering workforce to the nation. Providing a thorough assessment of the value of engineering to our nation is a complex undertaking involving objective and subjective elements. A simple, factual approach would be to equate that value with the sum of the salaries of all individuals performing jobs classified as engineering. By 2006, that value reached approximately USD150 billion. While not an insignificant sum, an argument can be made that the actual value is much higher.