Reasons for CS decline: preliminary evidence

Undergraduate enrollment in computer science in the U. S. has been declining since 2000, although there are some recent signs that it may have bottomed out. This decline has caused anxiety in some CS departments as their workload has decreased, and in business where shortages of CS talent have been forecast. This panel intends to present data on some of the causes for this decline in the popularity of undergraduate CS education and to propose some remedies based on facts. Some findings are: (1) Since recruitment of freshmen into CS is a zero-sum game, it is not sufficient to ask why CS not selected by prospective students. One must find out what fields are popular and ask why to get a differential comparison. (2) Some of the fields that have grown as CS declined are vocationally oriented: nursing, management, and political science (pre-law). (3) Preliminary results show that many students in such fields select them because of the perception that these fields offer better economic prospects than CS. In most cases this is not true, at least as far as entry-level salaries are concerned.