Only a third of American adults have college degrees; many who don’t consider higher education pointless or deem it unfeasible given other responsibilities such as parenting and making a living.

More specifically, 40% of non-college-degreed adults surveyed in a study commissioned by AEI Center on Higher Education Reform director Andrew Kelly (via GfK North America) consider college not worth the cost. Some of this amounts to personal preference or misperception.

On the latter, research from Georgetown University economist Anthony Carnevale confirms the tuition, loans, and time forgoing income for obtaining some majors (especially in liberal arts, social work, education, and anthropology) often coupled with high unemployment rates (or low salaries) for graduates in these fields can render the majors uneconomical. That’s especially likely if the degree was obtained at a pricy private university.

But most other degrees have impressive long-term returns … and nine out of the 10 most lucrative four-year degrees are in engineering. What’s more, pay disparities (between the salaries of women and men) for many engineering disciplines are relatively small or even nonexistent. But still only about 20% of graduating engineers are female. Visit designworldonline.com and search “Women’s Bureau” for specific quantitative data on this and other STEM professions. More after the hard data on all technical occupations.

Women's Bureau Employment • Occupation earnings

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2016

Occupation	Full-time workers	Women in occupation as percent	Median earnings total	Median earnings women	Women's earnings as percentage of men's
Architectural and engineering managers	144,812	8.9%	$130,293	$130,255	100%
Chief executives	1,068,258	23.8%	$130,266	$103,564	73.4%
Computer and information systems managers	564,747	26.8%	$103,513	$95,603	89%
Aerospace engineers	114,956	10.7%	$102,350	$91,982	88.3%
Software developers, applications and systems software	1,124,661	18.3%	$100,760	$88,759	87%
Chemical engineers	57,812	19.2%	$100,425	$84,137	82.8%
Computer network architects	92,872	6.9%	$98,374	$100,471	102.4%
Electrical and electronics engineers	186,214	7.9%	$96,538	$81,370	82.4%
Engineers, all other	471,817	12.7%	$93,058	$85,464	89.8%
Natural sciences managers	17,916	52.8%	$92,161	$76,768	68.7%
Civil engineers	311,007	12.6%	$86,606	$75,052	84.1%
Computer programmers	370,512	20.8%	$85,795	$80,528	92.5%
Mechanical engineers	245,579	7.0%	$84,537	$84,034	99.4%
Environmental engineers	27,552	27.6%	$80,421	$75,468	92.3%
Industrial engineers, including health and safety	183,615	20.9%	$79,761	$75,753	94.1%
Purchasing managers	181,255	47.9%	$76,501	$70,023	85.1%
Industrial production managers	220,263	20.0%	$76,077	$70,073	90.7%
Network and computer systems administrators	192,293	18.4%	$73,483	$69,127	92.3%
Environmental scientists and geoscientists	63,449	32.5%	$72,831	$60,315	76.1%
Technical writers	47,360	58.2%	$71,388	$70,139	95%
Chemists and materials scientists	77,023	36.4%	$70,594	$63,426	84.1%
Computer occupations, all other	569,272	21.8%	$70,492	$66,521	93.5%
Sales representatives, wholesale and manufacturing	1,182,664	25.7%	$65,716	$54,077	76.7%
Web developers	138,048	32.9%	$63,173	$56,860	84.4%
First­line supervisors of mechanics, installers, and repairers	245,683	6.9%	$60,447	$52,313	86.2%
Other healthcare practitioners and technical occupations	105,941	43.9%	$57,179	$52,594	84.9%
Engineering technicians, except drafters	319,240	17.6%	$55,953	$48,448	83.1%
Chemical technicians	56,741	28.6%	$52,188	$48,580	88.5%
Electricians	647,922	2.0%	$51,278	$50,082	97.6%
Industrial and refractory machinery mechanics	350,416	3.2%	$51,050	$43,169	84.3%
Pipelayers, plumbers, pipefitters, and steamfitters	478,329	1.6%	$47,032	$45,525	96.8%
Operating engineers and other construction equipment operators, including pile­driver operators	269,313	2.4%	$46,503	$50,129	107.8%
Computer control programmers and operators	84,907	8.8%	$44,235	$35,785	78.9%
Computer operators	75,141	45.0%	$42,199	$38,041	74.3%
Other installation, maintenance, and repair workers, including wind-turbine technicians	204,755	5.2%	$40,529	$34,637	84.9%
Welding, soldering, and brazing workers	475,547	5.5%	$40,394	$31,097	76.3%
Crushing, grinding, polishing, mixing, and blending workers	66,068	12.4%	$37,087	$29,582	77.6%
Automotive service technicians and mechanics	726,437	1.2%	$36,634	$28,342	77.2%
Molders and molding machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic	33,959	16.8%	$35,532	$29,056	77.7%
Metal workers and plastic workers, all other	326,498	21.0%	$35,076	$29,096	79.2%
Cutting, punching, press machine setters • Operators and tenders, metal and plastic	73,711	16.9%	$32,249	$29,971	90.6%
Miscellaneous assemblers and fabricators	811,317	37.0%	$31,485	$28,313	84.7%
Electrical, electronics, and electromechanical assemblers	105,464	49.0%	$31,438	$29,682	85.4%
Cutting workers	51,485	19.1%	$30,780	$26,199	82.4%
Packaging and filling-machine operators and tenders	204,703	53.8%	$27,178	$24,791	79%

So what about the more accessible option of community college or apprenticeships for middle-skills employment in high-tech fields — especially for those uninterested or unable to attend a four-year university? This is a significant opportunity for women, as the Brookings Institution estimates of the 26 million jobs in the U.S. requiring STEM expertise, 13 million of them are satisfied with less than a bachelor’s degree.

Here too, women miss out on much higher incomes garnered by relatively short training courses and certification in engineering and STEM-related trades. These include programming and coding, equipment and laboratory management, and machine operating — for which labor-market prospects are very bright. U.S. Department of Education data indicates that for the 100,000 STEM degrees and certificates men earn from community colleges every year, about 16,000 women earn the same.

Certificates conferred by community colleges

2009-2010 data • Source: U.S. Department of Education

Major	Women	Men
Health professions and related programs	112,775	28,354
Personal and culinary services	12,697	3,603
Education	4,624	973
Computer information sciences	4,555	10,191
Engineering technologies	2,283	13,668
Mechanic and repair technologies/technicians	2,049	36,768
Construction trades	665	15,442
Engineering	25	178
Mathematics and statistics	2	13

Associate degrees conferred by community colleges

2009-2010 data • Source: U.S. Department of Education

Major	Women	Men
Health professions and related programs	84,526	15,778
Education	11,577	2,877
Computer and information sciences	3,359	10,860
Engineering technologies	2,628	15,629
Personal and culinary services	2,500	1,560
Mechanic and repair technologies/technicians	785	11,332
Mathematics and statistics	317	690
Engineering	282	1,902
Construction trades	210	3,073

Total STEM-related certificates and associates degrees conferred on women is 16,285 for the year studied; STEM-related degrees conferred on men in the same year is 101,231.

It’s a shame, because while college may not be for everyone, options for gainful employment, higher education chosen by the individual, and dignity in career should be.

Two sets of misperceptions about technical certifications persist. Responding to Kelly’s study, non-college-degreed adults overestimate the cost of community college and apprenticeships (by thousands of dollars) and underestimate how much training ultimately yields. In addition, women report perceiving industrial or STEM-related jobs as lonely, performed in loud and dirty settings, or requiring significant physical strength. Of course, that’s untrue of many modern sites for engineering research, design, fabrication, and automated manufacturing — and the high-tech jobs in them.

Programs abound to address these misconceptions, normalize the participation of women in technical fields, and boost STEM enrollment through support of female students in particular. Consider those for women entering technical training: The federal Perkins V Act funds technical education at secondary and postsecondary schools with gender-equity provisions to get more women into nontraditional careers (many STEM) considered so when women are 25% or less of the workforce. The National Science Foundation funds robotics and other apprenticeships for ultimately placing women into manufacturing and advanced assembly positions. The American Association of University Women or AAUW (among other things) provides fellowships and grants to further women in second careers.

Organizations to support women pursuing STEM degrees or professional advancement are perhaps more familiar to Design World readers — the Society of Women Engineers, the Women in Engineering ProActive Network, Women in Manufacturing (WiM), the Association for Women in Science, and the array of organizations to engage college-bound girls in primary and secondary schools.

All of these organizations are stellar. Perhaps we can go further, though — occasionally bridging the gap between the professional college set and the technical-trade set. Even regular Design World editorial considers the perspective of the degreed engineer first because after all, engineers are our readers. But big-picture discussions of STEM employment for women that omits consideration of those not privileged enough to get early encouragement and support (for a straight shot through college) miss half the picture.

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Filed Under: ALL INDUSTRY NEWS • PROFILES • COMMENTARIES, Women in Engineering, Networks • connectivity • fieldbuses

 

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