Bills to Train More Scientists Go Down to the Wire

Congress mulls modest increases in spending, but much of the money may go to schools, not colleges

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By JEFFREY BRAINARD

Washington

It's been almost a year since university and business leaders warned, in an influential National Academies report, that the United States faced a serious shortage of scientists and engineers that threatened the country's ability to compete.

Some observers had compared the urgency for action to that facing the United States after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957. But unlike then, when the federal government rushed to substantially increase support for mathematics and science education at colleges, the bevy of bills surrounding the latest effort remain mired in a packed, slow-moving Congressional agenda.

The bills closest to passage this fall would provide a large boost in federal funds for research in the physical sciences, an accomplishment long sought by university scientists. But provisions for training scientists and engineers represent a mixed bag for academe.

While the Senate might vote on a bill regarding science education and economic competitiveness as soon as this month, President Bush and leaders of the House of Representatives have signaled reluctance to support much new federal spending for science education at the college level. Time is short for action: Members of Congress will want to adjourn in early October to campaign for the November elections.

Proposals from Mr. Bush and the House Science Committee place the most emphasis on new efforts to improve science education in elementary and secondary schools. Experts who study the scientific work force question that priority, however. They argue that the government could stimulate the production of scientists and engineers if it focused on encouraging more college students interested in science to complete degrees in those fields.

Also at issue is whether the predictions of a shortage of scientists and engineers are correct. Even the Academies' report says flatly that attempts at forecasting supply and demand have "often failed abysmally" and that "the same would probably be true today." The skeptics suggest that the industry and academic leaders who are pushing Congress to act have a self-interest in erring on the side of oversupply.

But as the clock ticks down on Congress's session this year, university leaders want some sort of legislation to emerge. C.D. Mote Jr., who is president of the University of Maryland at College Park and helped write the National Academies report, says the package of bills proposed so far "doesn't do everything you might like, but it does an awful lot of what we'd like and what the country needs."

Thumbs Up for Research Spending

Academic scientists are already elated that the proposed increase for physical-sciences research appears to stand a good chance of passage. Bills moving through Congress, and backed by President Bush, would begin the process of doubling the budget at three agencies, including the National Science Foundation, over 10 years. Mr. Bush's budget for 2007 called for an increase of $910-million, or 9 percent, to $10.7-billion.

Industry lobbyists have recommended raising that spending, which has been flat for more than a decade, as a key ingredient for driving economic growth. Those dollars have supported fundamental discoveries by academe that corporations have used to develop successful commercial products, like the Internet and medical imaging devices.

The federal government is the major source of funds for such research because corporations consider it too unpredictable and slow for them to finance.

However, setting aside additional research money was only one of many recommendations made in a series of recent reports on science's role in economic growth. The most widely cited of these — "Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future," released in October 2005 by the National Academies — also stressed the need to produce more scientists and engineers capable of inventing the lucrative technology-based goods of the future.

It says other countries, especially China, are rapidly catching up to or beating the United States on various measures of training scientists, although even some university officials there say that American universities have a commanding lead.

The reluctance of lawmakers to put more money toward college-level science training is reflected in spending bills for the 2007 fiscal year, which begins October 1, that are now moving through Congress.

Bills in the House and Senate would provide increases above inflation for the NSF's education programs, a principal source of funds for such efforts. But both chambers are considering amounts below the division's 2005 level of $844-million. Another major source, the National Institutes of Health, whose budget doubled from 1998 to 2003, would get no increase.

Promises, Promises

Looking beyond 2007, many members of Congress and university officials are trying to include support for science education in an "authorization" bill, legislation that provides no actual money but sets annual spending ceilings for specific programs over several years.

The significance of those bills is a matter of debate. Some research advocates say it is useful to set such goals because it creates pressure on Congress to follow up with actual appropriations. However, the recent history of science spending has departed from that script: Congress and President Bush approved an authorization bill in 2002 to double the National Science Foundation's budget by 2007, but Congress has not provided nearly enough money to do that.

This year Mr. Bush is pushing to reduce domestic spending, and some House Republican leaders also want to show restraint, nervous that they could lose control of the chamber in the November election partly because of their inability to control rapidly rising budgets.

Commenting on the flurry of bills to expand science education and train more scientists, Mr. Bush's science adviser, John H. Marburger III, cautioned in letters to Congressional leaders this year against creating "a multitude of new programs" and "new bureaucracy" that might divert money from the proposed increase for physical-sciences research.

Nevertheless, a compromise is in the works. University leaders say administration officials have proved receptive this summer to some sort of authorization bill, if only because legislative changes are required to carry out some of Mr. Bush's proposals for new science-education programs for elementary and secondary schools.

The compromise version, which could be made public as early as this week, is expected to retain some provisions of more-expensive Senate authorization bills that would provide a boost for college students. One in particular would increase the number of NSF graduate fellowships by 2,500 over five years, a rise of about 50 percent.

The leading bill in the House of Representatives to encourage science education, approved by the House Science Committee, is narrower in scope and would expand existing programs at the NSF.

The largest single increase in the House version would go to an NSF program that provides financial support to juniors and seniors majoring in math and science if they work as schoolteachers after graduation. The program gives scholarships of $10,000 a year in exchange for up to four years of teaching.

Created in 2002, the program is intended to help ease a shortage of 240,000 secondary-school teachers in math and science expected by 2010 because of retirements, attrition, and enrollment growth. It is also meant to help alleviate another problem: Many existing teachers of those subjects lack even a minor in them.

Questions About Efficacy

Even if Congress does act, questions remain about how far many of the leading proposals would go toward increasing the number of American scientists and engineers.

For example, doubling spending on physical-sciences research would help established scientists and create more research assistantships for students. But it will not necessarily help young scientists to win federal research grants, if the experience of the National Institutes of Health is any guide.

The doubling of the NIH's budget had hardly any effect on a long-term problem that has worried officials at the agency and in academe: the small and declining share of grantees who are young and just beginning their careers in biomedical research. In 2001 only about four percent of the NIH's principal research-project grants went to scientists 35 and under.

One way to encourage more students to start scientific careers is to help finance their graduate education, as recommended by some of the Congressional bills, which would increase the number of graduate fellowships awarded by the NSF.

Such an increase is overdue, says Richard B. Freeman, a professor of economics at Harvard University who studies the labor market for scientists and engineers. Each year the NSF awards about 1,000 graduate fellowships, roughly the same as in the 1960s, although the number of baccalaureates in science and engineering — the candidate pool for those fellowships — has tripled. The NSF only recently raised the stipend for the fellowships, from $15,000 to $30,000, and afterward, applications jumped.

But more fellowships may not have the desired effect, Mr. Freeman says, because salaries for scientists remain low compared with those for lawyers and M.B.A.'s, who can earn those degrees faster. "We've been sending a signal to people that says, Don't bother" studying science, he says. "Unless we change that, I don't see why people would make decisions much differently than they already do."

Some of the legislative proposals also contain provisions to help students who earn science and engineering degrees below the doctorate level to start their careers.

Last year's National Academies report argued, and many college officials agree, that college training in science and math is overly geared toward the production of Ph.D.'s with specialized skills suited to doing basic research in universities. Such an approach fails to equip students with skills, like business management and legal training, that will make them more marketable for and effective in industry jobs, the report suggested. A majority of all American scientists and engineers lack doctorates, and most work in industry.

A Senate bill would authorize up to $20-million in seed money for colleges to set up "professional science master's" degree programs to provide that kind of training. With the support of $11-million in start-up money from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, about 50 universities have already set up 108 programs since 1997. But the House Science Committee bill calls only for a study of the effectiveness of those programs.

Schools vs. Colleges

Some experts also question the proposals' emphasis on improving math and science education in elementary and secondary schools, arguing that efforts at colleges would have a more direct effect on producing more scientists and engineers.

The case for concentrating on college students is that plenty of those who are interested in and capable of earning science degrees drop out of such programs before earning a bachelor's degree. Thirty percent of entering freshmen intend to major in science or engineering, but only half of them earn baccalaureate degrees in those fields within five years.

Evidence suggests that many of those dropping out are talented in the subject but get turned off by the well-documented shortcomings of collegiate science, such as large lecture classes and inadequate assistance for students struggling to understand the concepts.

Questions also surround the effect of a new program beginning this fall to increase the size of Pell Grants for undergraduates studying science and math. Asked about the apparent slow progress of new legislation on science training and competitiveness, House Republican leaders have pointed to the program, which was approved by Congress last year, as a sign that the federal government is already doing more.

Under the program, the government will provide an additional $4,000 beyond the standard Pell award to juniors and seniors studying math, science, or certain foreign languages.

The Education Department estimates it will make 80,000 such awards, called Smart Grants. If so, that would represent a sizable fraction of the more than 400,000 students who received bachelor's degrees in science or engineering annually. Until now the federal government has tended to focus on giving money to institutions to help them improve undergraduate science instruction.

The prediction of 80,000 students may be overly optimistic, however, suggests Daryl E. Chubin, director of the Center for Advancing Science and Engineering Capacity at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Although the awards are available only to upperclassmen, students typically need to begin preparing as freshmen to major in science, he says. And the awards don't require colleges to take other steps to improve instruction to help struggling students succeed, he says. "I think it will take more than dangling money in front of the students," he says.

A Shortage of Scientists?

Beyond the question of how best to increase the production of scientists and engineers is a more fundamental question that has received little attention in public and Congressional discussions: whether America really is facing a shortage of those workers, and if so, how large it will be.

Some experts argue, for example, that the slow growth in wages for scientists and engineers indicates no shortage.

The argument for a shortage is based on many factors, but a big one is that other countries are increasing their production of scientists and engineers at a rapid rate while over all, numbers in the United States are relatively flat. China may pass the United States in doctorates as soon as 2010.

Last year's National Academies report emphasized that the United States has increasingly relied on foreign citizens to come here to study and work, but that flow could wane. Foreigners now earn about a quarter of the doctorates in science and engineering from American universities, and make up about a quarter of scientists and engineers working here. As other countries, especially China and India, develop their research universities and locally based technology-related industries, those foreigners may stay home, the report argues.

Advocates of an expanded federal role in science education argue that the United States cannot risk producing too few scientists, given the importance of technology to economic growth in the 21st century. They say even if those students do not end up working specifically as scientists or engineers, they will still develop critical-thinking skills and knowledge useful for many jobs.

The next few weeks may reveal whether Congress agrees to ante up more money to place a hedge against that risk. But the federal government alone cannot be expected to fix all the shortcomings of science education, says Mr. Mote, of Maryland. States also must take steps, for example, to help local school districts recruit science teachers who can help make the subject more interesting, he says.

But so far, only one state — his — has held a statewide meeting of industry leaders and policy makers to discuss how to carry out those and other recommendations in the National Academies report. "That's a bit discouraging, frankly," Mr. Mote says. "Unless the states are getting involved in this, the whole agenda can't go very far."

The National Academies has scheduled a meeting for state and local officials later this month to try to kick-start that discussion.