James has specifically asked me not to cross-post between here and OTB so I won’t. Generally, in reaction to some calls that we “should be more like Germany” the post asks the following questions:
1) Should we be more like Germany?
2) What does that mean?
3) What public policy would encourage that transition?
and, implicitly, a fourth
4) Are the public policy alternatives you’re suggesting politically possible?
A discussion (IMO somewhat more heated than is called for) has broken out in the comments section about the relative value of German and American college degrees and that Germans are getting more technical and engineering degrees than Americans. The discussion (again IMO) ignores the reality that over the period of the last ten according to the BLS there has been a net decrease in engineering jobs of roughly 76,000 while the number of H1-B visa holders has increased.
For example, the number of H1-B visa holders accounts for a very high percentage of electrical engineering and computer engineering jobs created over the period.
As I see it the most dramatic differences between Germany and the United States that I can see are that we consume a lot more oil and healthcare than the Germans do. Consequently, if we are to be more like Germany wouldn’t policy seek to reduce oil and healthcare consumption? Does it? I think there’s a mismatch.
The linkage of technical jobs to technical and engineering degrees only focuses on the depth of the education, so to speak, and ignores the breadth which allows those who’ve trained in mathematics, analytical thinking, problem solving, to find work in many fields not related to engineering and still use parts of the skills sets that they learned in their degree programs. When compared to the skill sets picked up from a sociology major or an ethnic studies degree, the math and engineering students have more doors open to them.
To me, the versatility and utility of STEM degrees would lead me to favor a policy environment which facilitated, for lack of a better term, a greater numeracy to balance literacy, in the college graduate cohort.
I’ve just published a foreign policy-related post at Outside the Beltway: 
You should publish it here so that those of us who have been banned at OTB can read it.
James has specifically asked me not to cross-post between here and OTB so I won’t. Generally, in reaction to some calls that we “should be more like Germany” the post asks the following questions:
1) Should we be more like Germany?
2) What does that mean?
3) What public policy would encourage that transition?
and, implicitly, a fourth
4) Are the public policy alternatives you’re suggesting politically possible?
A discussion (IMO somewhat more heated than is called for) has broken out in the comments section about the relative value of German and American college degrees and that Germans are getting more technical and engineering degrees than Americans. The discussion (again IMO) ignores the reality that over the period of the last ten according to the BLS there has been a net decrease in engineering jobs of roughly 76,000 while the number of H1-B visa holders has increased.
For example, the number of H1-B visa holders accounts for a very high percentage of electrical engineering and computer engineering jobs created over the period.
As I see it the most dramatic differences between Germany and the United States that I can see are that we consume a lot more oil and healthcare than the Germans do. Consequently, if we are to be more like Germany wouldn’t policy seek to reduce oil and healthcare consumption? Does it? I think there’s a mismatch.
The linkage of technical jobs to technical and engineering degrees only focuses on the depth of the education, so to speak, and ignores the breadth which allows those who’ve trained in mathematics, analytical thinking, problem solving, to find work in many fields not related to engineering and still use parts of the skills sets that they learned in their degree programs. When compared to the skill sets picked up from a sociology major or an ethnic studies degree, the math and engineering students have more doors open to them.
To me, the versatility and utility of STEM degrees would lead me to favor a policy environment which facilitated, for lack of a better term, a greater numeracy to balance literacy, in the college graduate cohort.