America Does Not Need More STEM Education

Thanks to Pro for challenging me. Pro claims, “As much as any other market, labor markets adhere to how when supply goes up, price goes down. The key to modern prosperity, therefore, is not to increase supply.” According to Pro it is impossible to ever have a need for anything, because supply always meets demand at a price. A few years ago there was a shortage of flu vaccine, and we needed more. It's true that the existing vaccine could have been auctioned off to the highest bidder, but that would have only solved the problem of allocation, not of meeting the health need. Where people are starving in Africa, food is available at a price, yet that doesn't eliminate the need. Pro's error is assuming that need is defined by supply meeting demand, whereas need really means “a lack of something requisite, desirable, or useful.” http://www.merriam-webster.com... We need more health care professionals. “...not only is there a decline in the number of primary adult care doctors, but there is also a shortage of nurses, physician’s assistants, community healthcare workers and nurses, ...”http://tinyurl.com... Education is the main way in which the need will be addressed, because we are near the limit of how many qualified health care workers can be attracted from overseas. Pro claims that keeping prices high is the key to prosperous economy. No, a prosperous economy is one in which prices of basic needs are low, so people can afford medical care, food, shelter, education, and all the things that make for prosperous economy. Education is not a free market The supply of education is heavily controlled by government, not a free market as Pro claims. For K-12, only about 11% of students are in private schools, and government controls the rest. http://nces.ed.gov... Public school policy is trending against skilled trades in favor of standardized college prep. http://tinyurl.com... 43% of undergraduates are in government controlled community colleges. http://tinyurl.com... In all of higher education, government subsidies and unrestricted student loans result ever-increasing tuition costs. A free market would allocate more education to students able to earn more in the STEM professions, but such is not the case. Pro's nerd theory Pro claims that technical people are properly characterized as nerds who lack social skills, that there is a large supply of unemployed people having technical skills, and that the reason that the alleged pool of unemployed technical people is that they lack social skills. Everyone of these claims is wrong, and Pro does not provide any proof. I have spent my life at nerd schools and in the Silicon Valley high tech industry, and I've hired at least a hundred engineers over the years. Tech professionals are mainly recruited through web ads and by contacting the placement offices at universities. What younger tech people seek is something new and interesting and they tend to change jobs every few years. Social networking has a role, particularly in start-ups, but tech types are as good at social networking as anyone. There are some unemployed software engineers. A top software engineer is literally 100 times more productive than a substandard one. To get a highly skilled workforce, companies outsource overseas if the supply is limited locally. The high tech labor market is government controlled Silicon Valley is now dependent upon tech-savvy immigrants admitted under the government-restricted H-1B visa program. Last year applications from sponsoring companies were accepted starting on April 1, and the quota was reach before the end of June. http://tinyurl.com... Clearly there is a need for more. Democrats are firmly opposed to expanded immigration of tech workers http://tinyurl.com... , so for the foreseeable future we will need more STEM graduates to meet the demand.