Miguel Afonso Caetano"The United States’ overproduction of bachelor’s and advanced degree holders — who were promised jobs that do not exist — is particularly pronounced in the murky category of STEM. Although we’ve been counseled that STEM is the future, and that American schools, universities, and students are falling short, the opposite is true. Per 2022 BLS data, only about 6.3 percent of all US occupations can be classified as STEM. Large numbers of STEM graduates are unable to find employment in their fields, and scientists’ earnings have stagnated, with their ranks greatly exceeding employers’ demand. All the while, bogus projections about the ever-increasing number of high-level STEM jobs have been used to deprioritize the liberal arts amid-programs of higher education austerity. At the K-12 level, STEM mythology has justified soul-crushing accountability measures based on student test scores.
American STEM graduates find themselves competing with H-1B visa holders, who disproportionately occupy science and technology positions. The H-1B is a temporary work permit that’s entirely at the mercy of employers (as Kraus notes, former secretary of labor Ray Marshall once described the H-1B employment relationship as “indentured”). This attractively tight form of labor discipline may be the real reason why employers have persistently lobbied for H-1B expansion. But they’ve built their case by referencing baseless claims about the supposedly inadequate supply of American STEM graduates."
https://jacobin.com/2024/04/fantasy-economy-review-public-schools-jobs-neoliberalism
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